Dare You to Live
by ElvenDestiny
Summary: Four years after the twins left together, Riku returns alone to a changed world, unwillingly dependent on Dark's protection. He cannot chase away the pain of her past, but perhaps he can save her future...if she would just trust him.
1. Return

**Dare You to Live**

By ElveNDestiNy

December 15, 2006

A/N: DarkxRiku, SatoshixDaisuke. A fairly long one-shot set four years after the final stage of D.N. Angel, exploring the complex connection between Riku and Dark. A quick note – I originally decided to use the Japanese naming system, but it became too complicated and inconvenient, so it's rather inconsistent in the story, particularly when Dark speaks.

**- Return -**

It was strange to come back. So strange, that after four years everything was exactly as she remembered, but at the same time, everything had changed. When she and Risa had moved to away to join their parents just after their fifteenth birthday, the house had not been sold. In preparation for her return, it had been cleaned and dusted, until there was no physical evidence to suggest that it had been devoid of life for years. Everything was as how it had been, the beds made with sheets with similar patterns as those that had been used in her preadolescence, and yet, like the town, everything was different.

She walked to the door that separated her room from Risa's and hesitated, before reaching out and carefully turning the doorknob. When they had left, they had taken all their personal belongings, of course. There was no reason to expect any lingering trace of her twin, and yet…

The bed for this room had been made as well, and sunlight streamed down through the windows, falling on a small crystal vase on the nightstand. Two pink roses in water, as if waiting to welcome someone. Risa had always loved the romanticism of roses, although Riku had personally felt them to be too trite, preferring the delicate and elegant beauty of orchids.

Feeling her throat tighten and eyes prickle, Riku turned aside. The roses were nothing. They had simply forgotten, that was all. Perhaps that was the reason why she had decided to return, because here she had been happiest and here she did not feel so broken. Yet as she slowly walked through the halls, the familiarity of the house did nothing to comfort her. The tastefully lavish furnishings were too much, the spacious rooms full of sunlight too bright and empty, the kitchen haunted with the reminder of Risa's terrible cooking.

She hadn't wanted to leave. Their parents had expected most of the fight to come from Risa, and it had, verbally at least. While Risa whined and argued, cried and threw childish tantrums, Riku had merely stood silently. Even now, she could remember the bitter taste of anger on her tongue—she loved her family and had missed her parents, but the years apart had passed easily and they were nearly adults. So why now, when they had become used to being independent, did their parents feel as if the family had to live together _now_? Some part of her knew why. It was their last chance to be children, the last chance for their parents to be parents, the way they were supposed to be. Her mother had been afraid of losing her daughters, especially after the near disaster that had overtaken the town.

At the age of nineteen, Riku had already felt heartbreak twice. The first time was when she had left Daisuke, putting on a brave smile and exchanging promises to write to each other. But after the first letter, she had never received any others. There were many reasons that she could think of to explain the absence. The twins had stayed a further year in Japan, then one in France and another in America, before returning to Japan this last year. The letters could have gotten lost. Daisuke might have been too busy to write. The simplest explanation was also the most painful, but Riku couldn't deny the probability.

They had been fourteen years old, although under special and magical circumstances, and it was only natural that crushes, no matter how intense or seemingly real, fade. Daisuke's first crush had been on Risa, after all, and in high school he would have met hundreds of other people. There would have been no reason for him to cling to someone who was little more than a fond childhood memory. In fact, Riku harbored no resentment towards him for it, and had also let him go, in her heart. The lingering traces of that feeling still hurt, however, and was one of the reasons why she had been a little reluctant to return.

Even so, as she walked out of the house, unable to bear the pervasive feeling of stillness, her feet unerringly led her on a familiar path. It was a long walk, but she could use the time to settle her feelings and figure out how she would do this. It would be awkward, but she couldn't deny her longing to speak to him. He was the only one who had loved Risa so deeply, almost as deeply as Riku's love for her twin. There was the other, of course… Riku hastily and angrily shoved the thought aside. He had not loved Risa at all! He had only used her and abandoned her when she most needed him. She walked faster, lost in her thoughts, and almost tripped in surprise when a brash young male voice called out to her.

"Harada-san? Is it really you?" A hand gripped her elbow as she wobbled, the tip of her shoe having caught a bump in the road, and Riku turned around, her mouth opening in astonishment and delight.

"Takeshi-san?" Daisuke's best friend had grown taller just as she had, and his newly mature face seemed to be more serious, although his personality had clearly not changed.

"I can't believe we haven't seen each other in so long? Where did you go? Daisuke-kun said he lost touch with you, but I'm sure he'll regret it once he sees you!" Takeshi looked her up and down, shaking his head in amazement. "You've become so beautiful! Err…not that you weren't always, but…"

He flailed and she decided to save him, blushing a little at his ebullient praise. "Takeshi-san, don't embarrass me! It _has _been a long time, over four years, hasn't it? You seem to have been doing well."

"I've become the editor-in-chief of the school newspaper," he told her, before continuing his barrage of questions. Riku supposed that his journalistic instincts must have gifted him with a natural curiosity about everything, and found to her surprise that her spirits had lifted a little simply from his sincere interest. "How have you been? Why couldn't Daisuke-kun find you? Say, where's that cute twin of yours?"

Until the last question, Takeshi had been keeping pace with her as she walked, and she had been listening intently, waiting for a break to explain some things. But when he glanced at her, wondering why she hadn't answered, Takeshi found that her face had paled.

Forcing a small smile to her face, Riku turned to him. "I'm sorry, but I have to get somewhere really soon, Takeshi-san. Perhaps we can talk another time? Goodbye!" She was already disappearing from sight at the end of the street when he registered her hasty departure.

Some streets away, Riku slowed back to a walk, feeling her heart racing, but not from exertion. She was in excellent physical shape because she had continued to run, having never stopped loving the solitude and self-challenge of the sport. However, her current attire was not entirely suitable for it, since she was wearing a dress that came down to her knees, showing off her long and shapely legs. The change had probably been what had startled Takeshi most, because Riku appeared much more ladylike and feminine than her younger self. Her hair, too, was slightly past shoulder length and tied back with a ribbon. The twins' French governess had tried to reform Riku from her tomboy attitude, although she had not entirely succeeded, and only in regards to appearances.

Even at a fast-paced walk, it seemed too soon before she was standing outside the door, wondering what to say when, or if, she knocked and was greeted by someone. After a few moments, she felt even more ridiculous. She didn't even know how she would react to seeing Daisuke, or how to bridge the gap of the last four years. It seemed like more than four years, almost a lifetime ago. Things had changed so much. But still, she wanted to see him, perhaps from a small, childish part of her heart that still clung to her first love, which told her that he would understand more than anyone else could. She had never been a coward. Riku shut her eyes and took three deep breaths, then reached out to knock.

Her hand met empty air where the door should have been, and then touched something warm and soft. Eyes opening abruptly, Riku found herself staring into the face of someone she thought she would never see again. Equally surprised dark violet eyes widened before a hand caught at her wrist and forced her hand away from his face. Everything that Riku thought of to say disappeared from her mind as she instinctively took a step backward, letting out a soundless gasp.

"You! What are you doing here?" Her exclamation was purely unfriendly. To be met by _him_, after all these years, and after Risa… She clenched her hands into fists.

Riku's voice had changed as well, although not as much as the rest of her. It had always been one of the biggest differences between the twins. It was huskier now than before, but still unmistakably hers, and when she spoke, especially in that way, recognition dawned in the other's face. Unwilling to meet his eyes, Riku kept her gaze eye-level, which meant that she saw his undeniably attractive mouth become a half-grin, half-smirk, one that seemed to be reserved for her.

"Shouldn't I be the one asking you that?" he said, tone matching his expression. Suddenly aware that he hadn't let go of her yet, Riku jerked away from him.

"Why…" she struggled here, unsure what was going on. "Why aren't you Niwa-kun?"

"He's out with Satoshi," Dark said casually, staring intently at her but finding no reaction except a brief glimpse of confusion. "Have four years really been so long?" he mused, almost as if to himself. "I told Daisuke he should have tried harder to reach you, especially if he was going to mope about it for a year."

Riku glared at the taunting mouth, aware that her efforts were utterly wasted, but even angrier when she remembered that he had stolen her first kiss. It wasn't only her first kiss, for that matter of fact—it had been her _only_ real kiss, aside from those she had chastely exchanged with Daisuke. She was torn between the desire to leave as soon as possible, and the desire to see Daisuke. "Let me speak to Niwa-kun."

"You can't," Dark said patiently, as if explaining to a small child, and enjoyed the flash of anger he saw. Despite the gentler appearance, then, Riku hadn't changed much at all. She seemed less at ease with herself, though, judging by her rigid, though perfect, posture. He searched her eyes, which she kept stubbornly lowered, but she had always been difficult to read, except for her obvious dislike, perhaps even hatred, of him. "He's not here."

"If Niwa-kun's not here, then how are _you_ here?"

In her implied accusation of his dishonesty, Riku had forgotten and had raised her gaze to dare Dark to admit that he had been lying. Instead of guilt, all she saw was amusement. Without thinking, she raised her hand to slap him, almost in tears from anger.

Again, he caught her hand and this time pulled her into the room, steering her into a seat on the couch and sitting himself.

"Well, it was about a year after you and Risa left," Dark said before she could attack him for manhandling her. "How much do you know about what's been going on in Daisuke's life?"

"Nothing," she replied grudgingly after a pause. "He never wrote to me, except for the first letter." Riku hated the way her voice wavered at the admission, expecting a taunt. Instead, Dark sighed, causing her to look sharply at him because it seemed almost sincere.

"Well, he was depressed for about a year, mostly because he never got any replies from you, but also partly because of me."

"Because of you?" Her voice sharpened.

"Both Krad…my other half…and I were sealed. Daisuke had become used to my presence, so when he suddenly found himself alone when I was gone, and even more alone after you and Risa left, he turned to the only one who was still with him, Satoshi. Especially since, although his experience with me was quite different from Satoshi's experience with Krad, both of them knew what it was to feel such an absence."

"He…with Hiwatari-kun…" Riku could feel Dark's inquiring gaze on her, so she stared at her hands, which were primly folded in her lap. Somehow it didn't surprise her, although it should have. There was a sense of rightness that she couldn't deny.

"You know how artistically gifted Daisuke is. He paints with magic, both literally and figuratively. Satoshi, too, comes from a family like the Niwas. So when Daisuke decided to paint a portrait of me, and Satoshi helped, it had unforeseen effects. The painting broke the seal and set me free, although it didn't release Krad." Here, Dark fell silent, and it was Riku's turn to wonder what he felt.

"However, we still shared a body, and it became…uncomfortable, given the increasing depth of the feelings between Daisuke and Satoshi." Aware that Riku was blushing and finding that it touched him, seeing as how she was hardly a young girl anymore, Dark gave her a wicked smile. "Yes, he fell for Creepy Bastard, of all people. Anyway, Emiko and her husband, along with Satoshi, eventually created a spell to separate us."

The silence stretched on for a few moments, Dark evidently waiting for her to react, but in vain. Finally, Riku stood up, knowing that if she stayed longer things would become disastrous. She had come here not knowing what changes four years had wrought, other than those in her own life, and now, she had found out. Things had continued happily in her absence. Why had she so clung to this piece of her past? Looking at Dark, she was silently overwhelmed by her memories. Risa had been shallow and thoughtless in her naïve crush on the thief, it was true, but it had really become a part of her, as well. And the twins had always been involved with the same people, whether it was Daisuke or Dark.

"I can tell Daisuke that you've returned," Dark said to her, also standing, and concerned. Her eyes were shining with unshed liquid and dark with emotion, the only hint of whatever was causing her so much sadness. Unthinkingly, he drew closer to her, and only then realized that she hadn't pushed him back as she should have.

"No, it's all right," she said faintly. "I think…I'll be leaving soon."

"Riku?" The softly voiced address, the form of it, brought her bright gaze back to him sharply. He put a gentle hand on her shoulder, and it snapped her out of her daze.

"Keep your hands to yourself," she said almost with a snarl, eliciting a laugh from Dark. Although it banished none of his worry, he rather liked the contradiction in appearance and personality. No doubt it made many people underestimate her.

"Still a virgin, I see…and as mouthy as ever. I guess the only sure way to shut you up…"

He reached forward boldly and cupped her chin, tilting her face up so that she would look at him, his actions unexpectedly tender. "…is with a kiss." There was concern hidden beneath his mocking tone.

He had played with her emotions once, and then moved on to her gentler, more naïve sister, who had never recovered. Perhaps neither of them had. Riku looked at him, looked at the violet eyes and the teasing expression, and the pain transmuted into anger, an anger that had been dormant and suppressed for months.

"Don't you want to know about Risa? Haven't you been curious where she is?" she asked scathingly. "Or have you forgotten her, since she was only one in such a long line of girls you played with?"

Startled by the sudden change of subject, Dark was silent. In his silence, Riku heard only his guilt, and her anger rose in a wave, mingled with pain.

"She never forgot you!" she cried suddenly, harshly, the tears finally spilling on her cheeks. "There were so many eager to go out with her, eager to show her how much they loved her. Risa had a _new_ boyfriend all the time, but she never had enough interest in any of them and they gave up, all because she couldn't forget you. You played with her, but it was never… It was never just a game, do you understand?"

She choked on her tears, her hands coming up to cover her face as she sank to her knees. He tried to help her and she lashed wildly out at him, nails scratching his face and leaving four thin red lines, visible even through her blurred vision. "How could you do it to her?"

"Riku…please." He put his arms around her, trapping her, and she beat against his chest with her fists, crying as she had not in front of her parents, as she had not in all the long months. "Riku."

"You talk about losing your other half," she whispered as he cupped her head, pressing her cheek against his chest so that she could hear his heartbeat. His hands stroked her back soothingly, all without her feeling it. "Do you really know what it's like? Do you even care that she _died_?"

She looked up at him, saw his shock and then swift comprehension, and then looked away. She would not be able to bear it if she saw pity. She would not be able to bear it if she saw anything at all. One emotion from him, reflected in those darkly violet eyes, and she felt that she would shatter. He held her tighter as if reading her thoughts and Riku didn't resist, exhausted and in too much grief to reject the only comforting touch she had had, even if it was coming from him.

"Both of us," she said. "Risa reveled in it, but I hated it. I didn't want to admit how alike we were in it, didn't want to feel like even with Niwa-kun, there was still you. Lingering there, haunting me. Always a ghost, a thief that stole some part of myself I barely realized was missing. How could you? Was it only because we resembled your lover?"

He carried her in his arms as he walked outside, and then they were flying. Riku began to struggle, and he leaned down close to her, so close she thought that he was going to kiss her, and she stilled. Instead, he brushed his lips over her forehead, a fleeting touch. Gently, almost before she was aware of the heaviness of her eyelids, puffy and painful from her tears, she began to fall asleep.

"You are precious to me," came the soft whisper, "because you are you."

* * *

**

* * *

**

**A/N:** Yes, I know the next chapter is up and you can't wait to go read it (and probably aren't reading this) but **please review!**


	2. Rewind

**Dare You to Live**

By ElveNDestiNy

February 3, 2007

Dedication: To my 'twin.' I don't think you've changed much at all.

**- Rewind -**

When Riku woke up, it was already dark outside, and she was in her own bed. She must have slept for six or seven hours, but her eyes felt gritty and sore, although she didn't recall crying for long enough to produce such effects. Sensing that she was alone in the room, she didn't bother to turn on the lights and instead went to wash her face in the bathroom. The coolness of the water was pleasant, and, skin still slightly damp, she wandered over to the window. The moon was almost a full sphere and very bright, illuminating everything in shades of blue, silver, and white.

Impulsively, she decided to go out onto the balcony, feeling the cold night air wash over her, making her shiver slightly. She had never felt so clear-headed, not since… Riku wanted to think that it had begun with Risa's death, but she was honest enough to admit that she had been unhappy before as well. Being bereft of her twin had simply worsened everything, and by magnitudes she could not have comprehended before. She'd lived day after day in a sort of haze, as if somehow dissociated from the world around her.

Now she felt oddly light and uncaring. It was as if all the pent up emotions she had held inside had faded to a gentle release, here where so many of her memories had been made. Her fingertips gently traced the smooth wood as she remembered her younger self.

"Dark…" It was almost a surprise to hear her own voice whisper his name. Riku closed her eyes, wondering if she would ever be released from whatever curse he had cast on her.

She remembered the sensations so vividly; his strength and warmth when he'd carried her, the sudden feeling of weightlessness when they'd been in the sky, the wind rushing past them and carrying away her tears. She'd felt such things once before, when she had been in Daisuke's arms when he had transformed into Dark, adding to the confusion she felt. Riku had begun to struggle, overcome by the strong but mixed emotions he created in her. She realized now that Dark had sent her into sleep to calm her.

Her cheeks warmed when she remembered suddenly how he'd almost kissed her. She wanted to hate him for it, but she knew that it was a purely defensive response. She let him mean too much, and she should have learned better, after Daisuke, after Risa. A wave of useless self-pity made her chest ache, and she took a deep breath, glad that he had left her here alone. Riku returned to the room silently, drawing the curtains across the windows and leaving the room in shadow, as if she could block out the memory along with the sight.

The loud knocks startled her and for a moment her heart beat arrhythmically before she realized that Dark would never be polite enough to knock. Telling herself that she was being unfair to him, Riku went uneasily to open the door, expecting to see Sabochi-san.

A very different person stood before her, looking as surprised as she was.

"N-Niwa-kun?" she stammered, seeing him again for the first time in four years. Gone were the softer curves of his face, replaced by more angular, matured features. He had become taller than her, and subconsciously, she compared him to his other half. No, not quite as tall as Dark, but they were surprisingly alike in all except in coloring, and might even have passed as brothers. Still, the claret red eyes that met hers were kinder and more innocent.

"Dark told me to come," he tried to explain, a little hesitantly. "I didn't know you would be here…"

The simple words, the sound of his voice that was so familiar even though it was deeper, proved that Daisuke hadn't changed so much at all. Hardly aware of what she was doing, she bridged the gap between them in two short steps and then flung her arms around him. "I'm so glad you're here," she cried into his shoulder.

He slowly put his arms around her, one hand coming up to comforting cup her head against him. Four years were erased, but also remade in those few moments. There was no need for words, no yet. It was enough for her to let go of whatever regrets she harbored still from the way that they had been undone. She found everything that she had needed, expected, in the embrace of a boy who had grown up to belong to someone else.

"I'm so sorry," Daisuke whispered against her forehead. She shook her head negatively, drawing back enough to gaze at him. What she found in them was reassuring.

"Now that I look into the past, maybe it's better this way," she told him frankly. The relief she saw in his eyes hurt, but only a little. There was no magic spell to take them back in time to when they had parted, and she neither wanted to blame him, nor wanted him to feel guilty about anything. Whatever she had lost as a lover, she still had as a friend, and that meant the most to her, in the end.

Riku let him go and beckoned him into the room, where they sat somewhat awkwardly on the bed. Daisuke seemed to still be adjusting to her ladylike appearance, and she almost wondered if he was imagining Risa. Truth to tell, it would have been more logical for Riku to even more adamantly reject anything feminine after Risa's death, since it would have made her look more like her twin. But she hadn't had the will to fight over something so trivial as clothes, although she still could not look into the mirror without thinking of Risa.

Risa would have loved the dress she was wearing, would have been thrilled to meet Dark again, no matter the circumstances. Just thinking about it made her fist clench. Risa had died because of Dark. How could she still have feelings for someone who had made her unwhole? How could she feel so strongly about someone who had killed her lovely and lighthearted twin, and in doing so, made her damaged beyond repair?

She wondered if Dark had told him about Risa, and if that was why he was so silent now. But Daisuke did not seem to be grieving, only uncertain about something. It was difficult to meet with someone she had known so intimately in such a different part of her life, yet who was now almost a stranger.

"Riku, those marks on Dark's face—did you do it?" Daisuke looked sidelong at her, and then down at where his hands were clasped in his lap. Startled, she turned her head towards him even so. She had almost completely forgotten how she had lashed out at Dark, had _almost _forgotten the four thin slashes she had left on his cheek.

"I…" She should have felt sorry, perhaps have even apologized, even if it would have been misdirected at Daisuke. But Riku didn't feel sorry at all; she was filled with rage still, stemming from a secret source of feeling she had yet to identify. So she simply gave a slight affirmative tilt of her head, expecting Daisuke's anger.

But he didn't try to judge her. He simply asked a question she did not know how to answer. She did not even know where to begin, if she tried. Daisuke turned to face her, his weight shifting on the bed and making her slide a little closer to him. "Why?"

A long pause ensued before she was saved at another knock on her door. Rising a little too hastily, Riku went to meet Sabochi-san. "Harada-sama, the dinner will be ready soon. Will the young master be staying?"

Riku turned to Daisuke. "Please," she asked simply. They still had so much to talk about. He nodded.

"Very well, I will set the table for two." The old servant looked at her for a moment after he said the last word, as if aware of what wounds he had perhaps unwittingly opened, but Riku's expression didn't change.

"Thank you, Sabochi-san." She smiled gratefully at him before turning back to Daisuke, who had noticed the odd tension. He finally caught the implication of the words, although he came to the wrong conclusions.

"You came back without Risa?" he asked, puzzled.

The smile slipped away as if it had never existed. "Risa will never be here in these rooms again, Niwa-kun. She never lived to see our nineteenth birthday."

"W-what do you mean?" Daisuke seized her hand, emotions swimming in wide eyes that were impossible for her to meet. She blinked back tears, telling herself that she had cried too much already, more than in all the past three months altogether.

But for the first time, she wasn't alone in her grief. It was what she had hoped for, when she had decided to come here. To feel close to her twin again, where Risa had walked and laughed and lived, to fill the absence. To see those people again, who had loved her dearly and known them as what they had been—twins. It had been wonderful sometimes, absolutely unbearable in others, but she had always thought that it was a bond that was eternal.

"She was with me." Her throat closed and she swallowed, striving to keep a steady tone. "We were walking, and she was distracted; she stepped off the curb a little, but there was a driver trying to park his car." There were no words to describe the fear that had sliced into her when she had seen Risa's limp body on the pavement. A broken doll, and yet all Riku had thought of at the moment was that her twin hated getting dirty, and the ground was filthy. It had been something so trivial.

Daisuke's hand gripped hers hard, almost to the point of pain, but she clung to it as if it were her anchor to the world. She had never spoken of it, not even to her parents who had asked a thousand questions. Why had Risa stepped off the pavement? Had Riku tried to stop her? What color was the car? What did the driver look like? Did she remember anything else? Could she pick out the person who had killed her twin out of a lineup?

"_Yes,_" she whispered. Daisuke looked at her in worry and confusion, putting his arm around her faintly trembling shoulders. _Yes, _she wanted to say, _I can pick him out. It was Dark. It was Dark who killed my twin_. But Riku shook herself free of the memories and held onto Daisuke, who deserved to know the whole story.

"She was taken to the hospital and we thought she would be fine, although she never woke up on the way there. She hadn't broken any bones, and there was no blood. The car hadn't been going that fast. I thought she would just wake up and be like her usual self, laughing off the scare. My parents came and we waited for the tests to come back, and then the doctor told us that she would never wake. She had hit her head, and all along she was bleeding inside and none of us had known. I never knew, even though she was my twin."

It was impossible not to cry. Riku shut her eyes, despising the hot tears sliding down her face, hating the salty taste of it, hating the way that they cooled on her skin. Even now, it seemed unreal. Daisuke murmured to her and Riku almost regretted being selfish in her grief. It wasn't all about her, she knew. Her parents had grieved too, but Riku had rejected all their comfort, all of Risa's other friends, shutting herself away in solitude, because they could not understand. A twin was more than a friend, more than a sister, more than just a loved one.

"The person who did it, what happened to him?" His voice was almost unrecognizable.

It was the hardest part to admit, the reason why Riku couldn't put it behind her. "I couldn't remember enough. The car drove off after Risa fell and all I saw was that she was lying there. They brought in people at the police station, but I couldn't recognize any of them, and I was the only one close enough to Risa to have had a chance of identifying the driver."

Daisuke held her tight, and it was almost enough. She wanted to tell him everything, especially about Dark, but Riku remained silent, swallowing her tears. No, it was between them only, and it wouldn't be right to involve anyone else.

Finally she excused herself and went to wash her face again, wincing at the terrible image she made in the mirror. But the world waited for no one and nothing, and this was how it worked. She lived each day, tears or not, even if most days she felt only half-alive and wondered what she was doing.

Over dinner they seemed to come to a tacit agreement, veering away from any subjects that were too serious or difficult to talk about. Daisuke told her a little about what had happened over the last four years, and she did the same, although neither brought up the matter of exchanging letters. He laughed shyly at her troubles with the French governess, complimenting her on her new appearance although he admitted that she was just as cute either way. She listened to how Daisuke gotten together with Satoshi, and how it had depended on a great deal of miscellaneous meddling from Dark, who had not liked it at all in the beginning.

"He was constantly calling him Creepy Bastard," Daisuke told her, sitting up straighter out of indignation and remembrance. "I told him that it wasn't his fault that Satoshi had been stuck with Krad."

"Do you…" Riku began impulsively, stopping when she realized it wasn't any of her business. But she wanted to know, and her eyes entreated Daisuke to forgive her lapse. "Do you think he misses Krad?"

Daisuke's eyes widened with surprise, and then narrowed in thought, although his expressions were lost on Riku, who kept her eyes lowered on the table and spooned little bits of dessert with what seemed like total concentration. "I don't know," he answered honestly. "I always thought they hated each other. Krad's always trying to kill Dark, they inflict so much damage to each other. But I guess he's the real constant in Dark's life, almost as if all of it's become a special kind of routine, a ritual that only they know."

"They are opposites," Riku said softly. "Nothing at all like each other, but so unlike that maybe that's what makes them the same. Two sides of a coin."

"Funny, I always thought you and…" Daisuke let his voice trail off. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," she answered. "Everyone's been so afraid to talk about Risa, it's like she never lived. It makes everything worse, as if they've all forgotten, as if they _want _to forget and can't understand why I can't."

"I'll remember," Daisuke promised her. "Always."

She smiled, and for the first time it was all right, although Daisuke, catching the fleeting expression, thought it had a bittersweet quality. "You wanted to say that you always thought Risa and I were completely different, didn't you?"

Daisuke nodded to the question, unable to think of anything to say and afraid to bring back the shadows in her eyes. He watched as she put her spoon down carefully, then sat back and folded her hands in her lap. It was strange to see that they had the same nervous habits. He was already done, so there wasn't even the minor distraction of food.

"I think we were. But I think that maybe that's what made it all the worse, because we balanced each other, and now that's gone. So, I just wondered if it was like that for Dark." She laughed self-consciously. "I don't know why I asked you, as if you would know."

"Maybe you should ask Dark then," he suggested quietly. She flinched, unclasping her hands and then lacing her fingers together.

"It's more complicated than that," she said. "I _was_ the one who marred his face. There's no justification for it, either, not in the way you're hoping. It's…difficult to explain why."

"He probably deserved it," Daisuke said in an attempt to lighten the mood, but she only looked stricken at his words. He hastened to say something else, but could not think of how to change the subject. "He was concerned, though. I think he would have come himself, but he didn't think you would want to see him, so he sent me."

"I met him while looking for you," she explained, and looked away. "I don't understand it. I don't understand how I hate him, but at the same time, I don't."

"You and Risa," Daisuke began slowly. "You two have always had a connection with him."

"More that you would guess," she said almost too softly for him to hear. He wondered what she meant, but didn't press it.

A grandfather clock somewhere in the house chimed, nine peals slowly ringing out, and Riku stood hastily, realizing that their late meal had taken far more time than usual, since most of it had been spent in talk. "I didn't mean to keep you, Niwa-kun, and you probably have a lot of things to do. I'm just so thankful that we talked."

It _had _made her happy to hear all the different stories, but at the same time Riku was aware of the gap that seemed to grow between her and Daisuke with every word he told her. He was happy, she could clearly see that. Things couldn't be any better for him, whereas Riku felt as if she were only here bringing up the past again, making things painful, spoiling everyone's contentment.

She had thought that if she came back here, she would feel more as if she fit in. There were no outside signs; it wasn't as if anyone who looked at her would mark her out as being odd or unusual, but that was almost how Riku felt, sometimes. Somehow, in some mysterious way, she was different. Riku had left with the idea that this place, these people would always be waiting for her, exactly as they were, should she simply decide to come back. But life had gone on with or without her and it was a slightly painful realization.

Daisuke assured her that he would not have rather been anywhere else as she escorted him to the door. Halfway there, she stopped abruptly, looking as if she'd seen a ghost. Daisuke reached out to steady her in alarm as her face turned white, and he followed her gaze to the windows next to the door. There was nothing there.

"What's wrong?" he asked urgently. Riku only shook her head, transformed before his eyes from someone who was grieving but finally coping, to someone on the verge of completely falling apart. "What did you see?"

"I-I thought…there was a man who looked l-like the one in the car…"

It took him a moment to grasp what she meant, and Daisuke put his hands on her shoulders, whirling her around. "The driver of the car from the accident?" he exclaimed.

Riku was shaking her head negatively, almost trembling. "It must have been a shadow. It was no where near here, there's no way. It must have been my imagination. I've been having dreams, sometimes. I'm just…I don't know what's wrong with me!" Her sentence fragments were jumbled and barely coherent.

Daisuke released her and strode to the door, opening it and flicking on the outside light with a definitive click of the light switch. Riku cringed as the door opened, but the light revealed only a deserted porch and yard. They stood in silence for minutes until the porch light's automatic sensor flickered off, casting everything into shades of silver from the moonlight.

Except a shadow passed over the moon, blocking the natural light for a moment, and Riku covered her mouth with one hand, stifling a scream. In minutes Daisuke was standing between her and the door, watching as something—someone—stepped out of the shadows. He let loose a slight cry as he charged at the indistinct figure, only his fist never connected as the person stepped nimbly out of the way and caught his wrist with an iron grip.

* * *

**A/N:** It would take two seconds to make this author really happy, so please review!


	3. Remain

**Dare You to Live**

By ElveNDestiNy

February 10, 2007

Dedication: To V—love once upon a time and friend always.

**- Remain -**

"Daisuke? What are you _doing_?"

Daisuke froze in surprise, not even trying to wrench his arm away, although the fingers encircling his wrist exerted an almost painful pressure. He blinked as the automatic light flickered back on from sensing the motion of his attack. The harsh artificial brightness revealed the stranger as not a stranger at all. "_Dark_?"

Still inside the house, Riku sank slowly to her knees, arms hugging herself tightly. Dark looked first at the speechless Daisuke and then at the kneeling girl. As if unwillingly pushed to a choice, he let go of Daisuke, straightened from his half-crouched defensive stance, and strode toward the open doorway. Even headed towards Riku, Dark's question was aimed over his shoulder at Daisuke. "What's going on?"

"So it was you all along," Daisuke said almost angrily, following Dark inside the house and seeing exactly how frightened Riku had been. "What were you thinking, sneaking around the house like that?"

Dark stood over Riku, extending a hand that she reluctantly accepted, and helped her up. He turned to Daisuke at the question, honest surprise crossing his face. "I just got here, Daisuke. What is this?"

"If you just got here, then who was it?" Daisuke challenged.

Dark's surprise changed to slight annoyance, and he opened his mouth to argue. "I don't know what you're—"

"Please," Riku interrupted, voice small but clear in tone. She realized that she was still holding onto Dark's hand tightly, and released it, bringing her hand back to her side self consciously. She took a deep breath, although it was still clear to the other two that she was shaken. "Niwa-kun, it was probably my fault. I told you, I've been having dreams recently, about what happened. All of this was probably just my imagination."

At Dark's pointed look, Daisuke explained. "When we were walking down the hall, she thought she saw the driver who hit Risa." Dark's expression didn't become any more enlightened, and Daisuke looked at Riku, suddenly wondering if he should have mentioned Risa at all, if Riku hadn't told Dark about it when they had met earlier.

Into the awkward silence, Riku told the entire story over again to Dark, speaking almost in an emotionless monotone. Daisuke ached for her; somehow hearing it all again, especially in that manner, was worse than it had been when she'd first told him. When Riku finished, Dark looked at her with an inscrutable expression. Even his wings—his real wings, since he had only used With because he feared that the considerable power his wings took would hurt Daisuke—were drawn tighter around his body, giving the sense of an impenetrable feathered shield.

"I came to check if things were all right with Daisuke, since he had been gone so many hours," he said finally. "I didn't see anyone when I arrived, but there was something that I thought felt strange."

Daisuke gave him a worried, questioning glance that Dark ignored as he walked purposely toward the open door again, looking intently at the glass windows that bordered both sides of the door. From the inside, they looked perfectly normal, but a glint of metal caught his eye when Dark stepped outside to examine the window edges.

He picked the long, thin piece of metal up, holding it to the light. Immediately, even from the distance away, Daisuke recognized it for what it was, although Riku looked puzzled. Dark looked back to his partner and they shared a look, in perfect accordance with one another on the matter, so words weren't needed. Nonchalantly, Dark pocketed the metal strip and rejoined them.

"What was that, Dark-san?" Riku asked. Having expected the question, Dark carefully avoided it, seeking to distract her with one of his devastatingly charming smiles.

"Nothing to worry about," he said easily, then paused, an odd expression crossing his face. It proved to be more distracting to Riku than anything else could have been. She could not recall ever seeing Dark look so strange, a mixture of indecision and guardedness. He was usually so confident that it translated over to his bearing and the way he spoke. "I don't think that you will like this, Riku, but I think I should stay for tonight, in case that man comes back."

Riku's mouth opened slightly in surprise, and she looked at Dark, then at Daisuke, before returning to stare incredulously at Dark. He was all but inviting himself into her house to stay overnight! How could he? It was so contrary to everything she knew that she almost missed the reason why—or at least the reason he had given.

"But there wasn't a man!" she insisted. "I must have thought I saw something, because I've been thinking about it so much lately. There's no need for…for what you suggested. Besides, Sabochi-san is here, so it's not as if I would be all alone."

"He's an old man," Dark pointed out. "And this house is more than big enough for the three of us, I would think." He gave a smile that would have been wry under any other circumstances, but now seemed slightly different to Daisuke, who had never seen the same expression. Combined with Riku's rather elusive comments about Dark earlier, Daisuke almost felt as if there was something going on between the two…although he told himself it was preposterous to think so.

"Dark-san, it's all right," Riku said, her tone perhaps more firm than she had meant for it to be.

"I understand you don't like me…but please, Riku," Dark said somberly as she rather defensively crossed her arms over her chest. If anything, the straightforward admission—that some part of her felt guilty for because it wasn't entirely true—combined with the plea, disconcerted her more. When Riku turned to Daisuke as if confirming that she wasn't dreaming, he gave her a slight nod.

"Niwa-kun? You think I really need Dark-san here?" Despite her initial impulse to reject the offer, there was something serious about the two young men that had no little power of persuasion.

"Just to be safe," Daisuke said almost guiltily. "Besides, like he said, he doesn't need to be inside the house at all. I would stay instead, if it would bother you less, but…I have another obligation."

"It's Satoshi's birthday tomorrow and Daisuke is planning something in the morning," Dark clarified for her sake, making Daisuke turn slightly red. The taller teen blithely ignored the glare he got from Daisuke, focusing all his attention on the girl before him. "Well?"

Riku blanched a little at the impatient demand in Dark's tone. Daisuke, having just spoken to her just hours ago about her 'complicated' attitude towards Dark, felt obliged to speak. "I could cancel it and do something else that would let me spend tonight here," he mumbled.

"No, no," Riku said hastily. She looked at Dark, clearly still unsure but also caught between their stubborn desire and hers. "It's all right; you can stay. If it means so much to you then, I mean, not that it does."

"Just for your safety," Dark replied. He felt responsible for her, maybe all the more so because she disliked him so. It would make things more complicated, though. With an inner sigh, Dark slipped one hand into his pocket, feeling the fine, smooth quality of the cold metal, which reminded him why this was necessary. Whatever Riku attributed to imagination, it couldn't conjure up a lockpick out of thin air.

Riku gave him a slight smile and, as if to hoping to avoid it, Dark turned to Daisuke. "See you tomorrow, then?" Daisuke nodded and Dark reached out to grasp his shoulder for a moment. "I hope the surprise for Satoshi goes well," he said with an actual sincerity that made Daisuke smile.

"Be safe," the younger teen said to both of them, especially holding Dark's gaze and making it clear that he was entrusting Riku to him. "I should go now, but I'll be back tomorrow."

Riku quickly stepped forward to give him a friendly embrace and then watched as he left, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in her heart. Daisuke was leaving her alone with Dark—with someone she could hardly bear, even now. Moments passed as she tried to steel herself to turn toward him, all the while sensing the heaviness of his gaze on her. She looked at him finally and tried to smile, feeling the tension of something, mostly unease.

"There's a room—" she began, only to be forestalled by Dark's raised hand.

"I did mean what I said earlier," he told her. "I know I make you uncomfortable, so I'll stay outside."

"The whole night?" she objected, surprised. "It's cold and it'll be wet from dew." Without completely realizing it, Riku stepped closer to him, tilting her face up to inspect the gouges that she'd left on her face. They looked angry and red, though they were shallow, and she wondered for a moment if they would leave any permanent marks. The thought left her with a funny feeling in her stomach.

"I don't mind," Dark said slowly, wondering if she realized how close she was. So close he could almost feel her warmth, so close that he could reach out and cradle her head against his chest, under his chin. He could smell the scent of whatever shampoo or lotion she used, a mixture he couldn't accurately identify, except to acknowledge that it was slightly intoxicating.

And all Dark could think was that it was wrong, so wrong for him to be reacting like this. He knew that she somehow blamed him for Risa's death, knew also that she had a strong aversion to him, and that he probably hadn't treated her as she'd deserved. But like the first night he'd met her, when he'd almost been as surprised as she had been (he tried hard not to admit this to himself) when he'd kissed her, it was something he couldn't seem to control.

He flinched when she sudden reached out to touch his face, and then held very still as her fingertips traced the line of his jaw from below his ear to his chin with a featherlight touch.

"I have a salve I can put on this," Riku said uncomfortably after a moment, snatching back her fingers when she finally realized that she had just touched him completely without his permission.

Violet eyes locked with hers as if they were trying to read her soul, but she thought they were unexpectedly warm, and serious. It was disconcerting to have to face this more responsible, thoughtful side of Dark. For a moment she almost wished for his usual shamelessly flirting self—not that she wanted him to flirt with her, but it would be easier to explain her suddenly pounding heart, or the blush she could feel making her cheeks warm.

"All right," he said, quietly, and Riku took a step back, suddenly fearing that he was too close. Why was he so agreeable? Why wasn't he provoking her?

"Wait for me," she said shortly.

"All right," he murmured again, and she fled.

* * *

She took as long as she ostensibly could in 'searching' for the medicine, confused at the welter of feelings that odd exchange had stirred up in her, before finally returning. Even though she had half expected him to have disappeared, it didn't explain the sharp pang she felt when she entered the room where she had left him and found it empty. Before she could react more than biting her lower lip, Dark appeared almost as if out of nowhere. 

"I thought it might take a while, so I took the time to inspect the premises," he said in a careless tone, although Riku felt that it was deceptive. She understood him a little better now, at least in these things—she didn't understand why he felt the need to hide his true feelings, especially when he was so bold in everything else, but she understood that sometimes it was an act.

It wasn't until she silently handed the salve to Dark that she realized she had made a serious mistake—she hadn't brought a mirror. Dark looked down at the plastic jar with bemused expression, probably having realized the same thing. Mortified, Riku snatched it out of his hands again.

"Will you let me?"

At his slight nod, she unscrewed the lid and dipped her index finger in the salve, trying to ignore how her hand was trembling. He leaned down so it was easier for her to reach, and she tried to finish as quickly as possible. After the initial barely audible hiss of pain when she applied the salve—Riku remembered suddenly that it really stung at first—Dark's features remained composed under her ministrations, his eyes closed.

His skin was smooth, warm, and almost impossibly perfect. The top of his button-down shirt was open, revealing more of that golden skin, and without thinking her left hand came up to cup his chin. She saw his Adam's apple move as he swallowed. It was hard to breathe around him, hard to even think, and she couldn't help wonder, as she looked at his impassive façade, if he was affected by it too. A kind of tension, a kind of poison she fancifully imagined was in her blood, moving slowly through all her veins with every beat of her heart until it took her over and she died.

_Concentrate_, she told herself. But with his eyes closed, she could look as much as she wanted to, with no one to know but herself and the guilty little voice in her head. With one final swipe over his cheekbone, Riku stepped back on the thin excuse of checking her handiwork. Even so, she was unprepared to meet the deep violet eyes that looked straight at her, as if looking into her soul. The silence seemed almost oppressive, forcing them to rely on the language of glances and expressions, so easy to misinterpret, so difficult to conceal.

"Thank you," he said, voice somewhat hoarse, and she wanted to childishly cover her ears. Instead of protesting that she had given him the scratches in the first place, she merely nodded.

"I'll show you your room." She sensed that he was about to protest, and cut him off. "Whether or not you use it."

"All right," he said, and she thought that she had never hated those two words more, all because they came from him.

She led him to the western side of the house, where the bedrooms had been empty for almost as long as she could remember – perhaps at some point, when her parents had been here, they had been used, but the twins had always lived in the east wing. She listened to the muffled sound of her footsteps and it took her a moment to realize why it sounded so wrong to her. There was no answer echo as there had been before; Dark had stopped.

"What's wrong?" she asked him.

"I should be close," he stated bluntly. Riku stiffened. So, he had noticed. "You don't need waste time showing me the room. I'll be on the balcony."

"You can't be serious," she exclaimed before she could stop herself. "It's not to be taken seriously! I'm not sure I even _saw _anything, and...after… I've caused so much trouble—"

Riku stopped abruptly when he reached forward and gripped her wrists. "Who told you that?"

"What?"

"Who told you that you were causing a lot of trouble?" He stared so intently at her she was almost afraid.

"I-I don't know," she stammered. When had she started feeling as if she were a burden—when everyone else had moved on, and it had become painfully obvious that she couldn't? When had couldn't become wouldn't, and grief turned into vice? They'd sent her to counselors, even psychiatrists. She had an unused bottle of sleeping pills to help chase away her nightmares, but she disliked the miasma they induced during the day.

"You do. Was it your parents?" Dark demanded.

"Why do you want to know?" she burst out. She wanted to say so much more, and it was on the tip of her tongue, all the boiling, angry, frightened words. _Why are you invading my life? Why can't you leave me alone? Why can't you let go of me?_

Dark seemed to realize that he was hurting her with his tight grasp, and loosened his grip, but still didn't take his hands away. For a moment, his eyes almost looked a little unfocused as he took a deep breath and visibly strove to speak in a calmer tone.

"Riku, I don't want to hear you saying any of that nonsense, all right? I believe in you, but you have to believe in yourself. Please just trust me about this and let me protect you."

He seemed so honest, so sincere. There was that word again, _please_. But this was Dark—when no one else could understand her, when no one else was there to support her, why was it only the young man she feared and all but hated, that spoke the words that were the most meaningful? She looked at him, and to her horror, felt tears well up in her eyes. _Not again_, she prayed, biting her lips and blinking hard. _No more_.

He accepted her silence, allowed her to regain her composure, all while leading her back to her room. Under normal circumstances she would have been irritated by his presumption, seeing it as just another sign of his overwhelming arrogance. But instead his hand on the small of her back was steadying, the comforting touch of another person, and he guided her as if she were blind and he were looking out for her.

She sat on her bed in her dark room—he didn't seem to know where the light switch was, but the moonlight was bright—and watched as he locked the door. She went into the bathroom automatically and changed into her pajamas, then came out. He hadn't moved and didn't, until she returned to the bed and crawled underneath the sheets, wondering if he would be there all night, watching her with those eyes that saw too much. But he silently went over to the balcony doors and unlocked them.

"Dark-san," she called softly, stopping him before he stepped out. She wanted to tell him, wanted to explain why everything was the way it was. That she couldn't help but hate him, because in her eyes he had done something utterly unforgivable; he had killed her sister, her twin.

"Yes?"

"Nothing," she murmured after a moment. It felt almost as if every bone in her body ached, and her eyelids were heavy. She was so tired, but she knew tomorrow she would wake up with little change, because she was unable to sleep peacefully.

"Good night, Riku. Get some rest…"

* * *

**

* * *

**

**A/N:** Please review? lol, pretty please?


	4. Resist

**Dare You to Live**

By ElveNDestiNy

February 17, 2007

April 30, 2007

**- Resist -**

She woke up all at once, but it was still too late to stop the scream that had built in her throat, and the best she could do was clap a hand over her mouth in a futile attempt to stifle it. The fast breaths of air didn't seem to be enough to calm her racing heart, even as Riku held herself as motionless as possible, riding out the wave of fear. She forced her eyes open to look around her in the dimness of the room, seeking the reassurance of the familiar things in her room, although they were only faint outlines in the dark.

Usually the trick worked well, because the furniture was never arranged the same way as it was in her nightmare. But this time…this time everything looked exactly the same. Riku felt the bubble of panic rise in her chest again, her rational mind battling against her instinctive fear. Even as she tried so hard to remain calm, dreamscape began to merge with reality.

One of the French doors to the balcony opened suddenly. Riku sat up straight in bed, all of the feeling gone from her body, but curiously unafraid. It felt like she had been transported back to the past—back to her eighth grader self. Risa had always stayed out late on the balcony, looking up at the stars that she so believed in, and hoping always to catch a glimpse of dark wings. No matter how much Riku scolded her and told her that she would get sick from the cold, she never gave up.

For a moment, the belief that her twin had come back was so strong that Riku opened her mouth and breathed out a name. "Risa…?"

But the silhouette was all the wrong size and shape, and of course it wasn't. It was only then that she truly woke up, not just the flight-or-fight response that had jolted her awake. Everything looked as it was because she was in their old house, and the person who strode so swiftly to her now was not her twin, because her twin was dead.

"Are you all right?"

She was glad he hadn't flicked on the lights, because her eyes stung with tears at the suddenness of the realization of loss, like they always did. This was why she was always so tired, because she couldn't sleep, so then the constant fatigue made her emotional and made it far too easy to cry.

Dark stood by her bedside, looking at her concernedly, and she realized that she had waited too long to reply. Without asking for permission, he took a seat at the edge of the bed and reached out. His hand closed over hers and she self-consciously let go of the tightly clenched sheets in her grasp.

"Do you want some water? I can get you some," he offered neutrally.

She shook her head negatively, aware that although he had good intentions, his presence was not exactly calming. "It's all right. It…happens often."

"Wasn't anyone concerned?"

"They gave me sleeping pills, but I don't like to take them," she admitted. She was bothered by the questions, by the feeling that his concern might be genuine.

His hand warmed her cold fingers and his thumb lightly skated in soothing circles over the smooth skin on the back of her hand. "Why don't you tell me about it?" he suggested.

Riku bit back the retort that first came to mind, that it was none of his business and he was the last person she wanted to talk to. Whether she liked it or not, he had somehow inserted himself in her mind, whatever the reasons. She had no idea how easily he read the confusion, pain, and wariness in her eyes, or the tension in her shoulders.

"Maybe if I explain, you'll understand why I don't need you to stand guard over me," she finally said. "I probably didn't see anyone outside of the house at all. After—after she died, I began to have these dreams of when we used to be younger, closer. Well, we were always close, but the older we got, the more different our interests became. I guess it wasn't that unexpected."

"Not unexpected," Dark echoed in agreement. "People always fear death, not understanding that it's time that they fear, the one force that can never be overcome. It's time that takes things away…time, and memory."

Catching the slightly odd inflection of his voice, Riku wondered who, or what, it was that he had lost. Or was it the generations upon generations that he'd seen come and go, which gave his words such a melancholy air? Dark didn't seem to want to share, so she continued, fumbling for the explanations, the justifications, that she couldn't bear not to give. "Maybe it was a little because we didn't want to always been seen as a pair. Even if we both liked the same color, Risa always said her favorite was pink, and I always chose blue, just to be different."

"Sometimes it's hard not to fight each other just to show you're not the same," murmured Dark. Riku glanced at him in surprise, about to ask him how he knew, before she remembered. He probably did think of Krad often, maybe even missed him, however strange it was to miss an archenemy.

"I suppose. It's always the same variations of the dream, anyway. We'd become too distant, and then when I finally look at her again, there's someone there, and she's gone, separated from me forever. Sometimes she dies. Sometimes we're walking and I turn to her, and she's vanished."

She felt numb and warm at the same time, but it was a relief to tell someone. She looked down at the hand covering hers, and wanted that comfort. As if sensing her compliance, Dark put an arm around her shoulders. The very real touch grounded her.

"Sometimes I think there are two people, a shadow farther away and someone else, and both of them are facing us. The shadow looks like what I think the driver looked like, and the other person is standing with his back to the man but still looking at us, and it's usually…" Riku didn't know whether to go on.

"Why did you stop?" he asked after a moment, when she didn't continue.

"It's usually you," she blurted out, almost at the same time.

Riku didn't see the surprise even though she was looking straight at him, and if not for the sudden tensing of the muscles in the arm around her shoulders for a moment, she wouldn't have known how deliberately he relaxed. She marveled at his control and wished that he could lend her some of that strength. It'd been so long since someone had touched her, held her, and it was hard to reject that comfort, even if it came from him.

"This is why it's part of my imagination, you know?" she said suddenly after the awkward pause. "These dreams, they don't mean anything." Riku did her best to laugh.

"Dreams always mean something," Dark said somberly, "even if you think you'll never understand them."

"What do you think it means, then?" Riku challenged, carelessly. She looked away, trying not to be so aware of the intimacy of his arm around her, his warmth. She should have been uncomfortable, but she wasn't—just the opposite. It was dark in the room, unlit by anything other than moonlight, and she wasn't sure if she should fear the shadows.

He hesitated. "You won't like this."

As always, any change from his usual confident to the point of arrogant attitude sparked her curiosity. "Why don't you try me?"

"Maybe it means that I can protect you," he said gently, surprising her. When she didn't respond, he added, "If you will let me."

A small laugh escaped her, genuine but also sardonic. "Why would you want to?"

She hated the note of wistfulness in her question, the way her words sounded sad instead of defiant. "Never mind," she said before he could answer, if he intended to.

"Riku," he said, trying to get her to look at him. She stubbornly kept her head turned away from him, and his hand came to cup her chin to guide her gaze to his. "You mean something to me."

"Don't fool yourself, Dark," she replied. "Just…don't."

"I wish I could," he said wonderingly. He searched her with his eyes, as if trying to read something in her expression to help him figure out a mystery.

She shrugged out of his embrace, ill at ease with the way the conversation was going. "It's the middle of the night; we shouldn't be talking like this. You should sleep, too. Do you want anything else?"

He took his arm away but he was still close, and he was looking at her in a way that caused strange thrills to run through her. He leaned close as if to brush his lips against her cheek and she turned away, causing him to pause.

"Tell me why," Dark said. "Why do you resist?"

"You could destroy what's left of me," she whispered, knowing it was useless to deny that she found him fascinating. "I'm not stupid. I know how much you can hurt me. Every time I look at you, I think of how moths fly to the light, even though it kills them. The closer they are to the brightness and warmth, the closer to death they are, but they don't even know."

"And yet, some would rather die in a blaze of light than alone in the dark," he said, and she could not think of a reply. He so cleverly took her words and made them his own.

"And some prefer not to risk death at all," she said at last.

"Not you," Dark said in a low voice. "You were always brave."

"How do you know I haven't changed?"

Those violet eyes studied her as if they could see into her soul and she looked down to avoid them. "I know," he said simply. "I just wish that you did too."

He had the effect he desired; Riku accidentally looked at him, suddenly unsure. Possibilities ran through her mind before she could stop them.

"Riku…I'm here. Please let me be here for you." He kept his gaze locked with hers, patiently waiting for her to speak.

She told herself that he'd had plenty of experience whispering these sweet nothings. He was only amusing himself with her because he was bored and she was here—there was no one else because Risa was gone, forever, or else her twin would be the one with these feelings when Dark held her and acted as if he cared for her.

It was only the truth, so why did it hurt so much to admit it?

"Don't play games," she said at last, her heart beating too hard, too fast. "Don't give me pretty, empty words."

"Then tell me what you want," Dark replied, the only warning she got before he leaned closer and took away the last distance between them. Suddenly, he was kissing her. Suddenly, Riku couldn't think, as if every thought in her mind had fragmented. Had she expected anything, she would have expected something hard, a forceful meeting of the lips, like that first stolen kiss between them.

Instead, what she got was soft, gentle. He kissed her as if she were something delicate but infinitely sweet. Somehow the impression was both lasting and ephemeral, and he drew away almost before she was able to register it. It was only when there was just the lingering sense of his mouth on hers that she realized they had kissed.

He was looking at her with a curious expression in his eyes, his head slightly tilted as if in a questioning way, and she was suddenly dissatisfied. She opened her mouth to vocalize the strange discontent but he seemed to read her mind.

"Riku," he said, voice low and slightly hoarse. Riku closed her eyes, not sure if she was willing him closer or away. He pulled her to his side, into his body, and then his breath brushed across the sensitive skin of her neck. Dark placed hot lips against her throat, over her pulse, as if tasting the life that fluttered so madly beneath.

She was the one who kissed him. There was nothing hesitant about that exploration, but it wasn't a battle for control. It was a battle of wills, and he broke through her defenses. There was no other thought in her head but him. Her hands cupped his head, her fingers threading through the dark strands of his hair, and she didn't care about anything but the sensations coursing through her. When one of his hands cupped her breast, his thumb brushing over the hardened nipple through the sheer fabric of her nightgown, she made a sound low in her throat with the sudden revelation. He made her feel alive.

Riku breathed hard when they finally broke apart, more than slightly dazed. She almost put a hand up to her mouth; it felt bruised with the force of their kiss, and she could taste him on her tongue still. But without his immediate overwhelming touch, some cool logic returned to her, and it was a jolt to her, almost as much as their sudden kisses had been. Propriety whispered in her ear that he was in her bedroom at night, it was dark, and he was on her bed kissing her like a lover. It wouldn't have mattered—she could have cared less about social decorum—but it was still wrong, just for different reasons.

Suddenly Riku wanted to wipe her mouth, to take away the moment, still so fresh in her mind, which was already becoming a part of her permanent memory. Dark seemed to sense the sudden shift in her mood and he reached out to hold her hand. She withdrew it from his grasp, moving away from him.

They had almost been lying side to side, and it was too close. The desire was suffocating, and it didn't matter whether it was his or hers. She drew on the one thing that she could always remember, and took angry strength from it to push back her fears and wants. Riku threw the questions at him, unable to explain the horror and self-disgust she felt, to know that she wanted him so much. To know that in just a few moments she would throw away her loyalty to her twin, her grief, in exchange for some kisses with him. "Doesn't it matter at all to you that Risa died for you? Do you want me to die for you, too?"

He sucked in a slight breath at her harsh words but she didn't let herself feel anything, not even knowing he didn't deserve this from her. She read the combined hurt and pride in his eyes, making them an intense, dark violet that the moonlight bleached to something nearly indigo. "Why do you always say it—that I killed Risa?"

"Didn't you?" she asked coldly, pushing back her own thoughts and focusing on the memory of her twin. "Didn't you lead her on; encourage her feelings toward you, until it was too late? You were the reason why she stepped off that curb, Dark. We were walking, but she thought she saw you, just like she always did, and she stepped off before I could stop her. So the car came and hit her."

All the bitter words poured out of her and she was glad that the tears in her eyes blurred her vision enough so that she didn't have to see how much she hurt him, but it wasn't enough. Wasn't it ridiculous how even now her body was hyperaware of his presence, as if wondering when it would experience his touch again?

Betrayal. That was what it was. She had somehow put her trust in Dark, letting Risa fall for him more and more—not that she could have necessarily controlled her twin, but she could have been there for Risa more. Instead, when it was over, Riku had wanted to forget about everything related to Dark. She had brushed Risa off every time the subject came up, too desperate in trying to ignore her own feelings, as she always had. Dark was connected with Daisuke, Daisuke with Dark.

It hurt to think of either, but Risa would only think of Dark, no matter who she was with. She was always comparing, reminiscing; she didn't understand the guilt Riku felt, the slight jealousy that she buried so deep within herself when she finally recognized it for what it was, because Dark had always been Risa's. Never mind that he had kissed her first. Never mind that Risa had no more claim to him than she did, but it had somehow worked out that way, by the sheer fact that Riku would always put her twin before herself.

So she hadn't been there for Risa, and Risa had never lost her obsession, not even thousands of miles away. She had never stopped _feeling_ Dark—in the middle of a lesson, while listening to music, she would turn to Riku and even without words, Riku knew who she was thinking of again. A bird's shadow would pass over them and Risa would tilt her face skyward, eyes searching, and it didn't matter that she never saw what she wanted to see.

Riku blamed Dark for Risa's death, or at least she wanted to, because in truth she blamed herself more. She wanted to take back all the things she said to him, and she wanted to let them stand, too, as if they would convince her that she truly felt that way.

"Why are you like this?" The way he asked it—in the darkness she could not see his expression, especially because he had turned half away from her, but his tone was calm. It held none of the anger that she had expected, or any defense. She thought almost that he believed her, that he honestly thought that he was responsible for Risa's death, when it was really her own fault most of all.

Riku hadn't expected his acceptance. She hadn't wanted to push the blame onto someone else's shoulders, not when she was only trying to escape her own sense of guilt, magnified by whatever it was between her and Dark. Risa was gone now, so Dark could focus his attention on the twin that was left, right? She tortured herself with the question, trying to catch the gladness that must come with that betrayal that was worse than all the others, but she didn't feel any.

"I'm sorry," Riku said, voice breaking. She wanted to laugh and cry at the same time, and ended up doing neither. "Don't listen to me. I'm being unreasonable. Sometimes I think I'm half mad myself."

"I'm sorry, Dark," she said again, only to realize that she was alone in the room.

* * *

A/N: **Please review**. If anyone's interested in an NC17 DarkxDai piece, search for ElveNDestiNy on AFFN.


	5. Regret

**Dare You to Live**

By ElveNDestiNy

August 13, 2007

A/N: Sorry for the long wait. Part IV was edited with a few significant changes to dialogue, so you might want to reread that one before you get started on this update. I really suggest that you at least skim it because this part refers back to the last one.

**- Regret -**

It was another morning, another start to a new day, and it came long before she wanted it to, although Riku woke just as the windows started to show the lightening sky outside. She had slept more than she had in weeks, the demands of her exhausted body overriding everything else for once. The worst of it was that she knew she wasn't in such a bad state solely from grief at the death of her twin. She hadn't healed from that, but she had been more upset in the past few days than all the days of the last month put together, and it was mostly because of Dark.

Riku pressed her palms to her eyes, trying not to let the argument from last night replay in her head. Was it even fair to call it an argument? Dark hadn't argued back at all. She still couldn't understand how she could have done it, how she could have said such hurtful things without any hesitation or thought of the consequences. She hadn't said her thoughts so bluntly for a long time. It was as if something had broken inside her last night, something that took away four years of lessons in self-control and restraint.

What perfect timing. Just when she had thought life couldn't get worse, it did.

She hadn't done anything truly wrong. She had simply told the truth about Risa's death—the reason why Risa had stepped off the curb so randomly, not even aware of the danger she had put herself in. But the truth was something Riku had never shared with anyone else.

How could she, after all? She didn't want Risa to be remembered as a lovesick girl who had died because she believed her lover had finally come for her. It was enough that Dark had destroyed her twin so completely—at least in death Riku could finally protect her.

But the regrets she still had felt as if they burned a hole in her heart. Riku had not even tried to discourage Risa's fantasy. She _knew _her twin had always expected Dark to find her one day, she _knew _Risa had always been waiting, ready at any moment to stop her life for Dark. And still, despite all that knowledge, Riku had done nothing at all. She had successfully protected Risa from absolutely everything but her own love for a certain black-winged memory.

Most of all, Riku knew that all of it was because she had been too intent on protecting herself…and from those very same memories.

Too late for regrets, though. Riku knew that, too. She couldn't go back and change the past, not even the words she had said just last night. It startled her to think that it had only been a few hours ago. Everything seemed to have been carved onto her memory as deeply as those moments when Risa had died.

The only thing she could do was to continue to live, as she always did. The Riku that stared back at her from the mirror looked far better than she felt, although her eyes were red rimmed and her long hair hopelessly tangled. Riku gripped the edge of her sink, trying her best to clear her mind of thoughts. Already, her head throbbed with the beginnings of a headache that she knew would only get worse as the day wore on.

She showered, dressed, and finally made her way downstairs. The house seemed eerily quiet, although she knew that Sabochi-san would not be up yet. It was still early in the morning. Riku quietly ate breakfast by herself, or at least she tried to eat so that she could say she did. Although she had no appetite whatsoever, Sabochi-san worried about how much weight she had lost, as had her parents.

It was funny that it was only when Risa was gone that Riku, who had never cared what she looked like or what she wore, finally realized how much appearances mattered. Looking unhealthy only invited more questions, more doctors who would be asked to treat her. So, even now, Riku was wearing a blue dress that would have passed even her French governess' inspection, although her hair hung freely down her back in slight waves.

She cleaned up and then almost mechanically went back to her room and stood before the French doors. With one hand, she pushed the curtain to the side. The glass was so clear that it might not have been there; the sun shone down brightly on the empty balcony. Her eyes swept across it without really seeing, the throbbing in her head suddenly intensifying until her nerveless hand let go, and the curtain swished back into place. She might have softly called out a name, might have not.

A moment passed, and then two, as the headache subsided briefly. It left her feeling lightheaded, but thankfully not too dizzy. It wasn't right that her head could feel as if it were splitting apart, Riku thought distantly, but this time, possibly for the first and only time, she had actually welcomed the pain. It distracted her from the heaviness that seemed to have settled in her chest.

The taps on the bedroom door were probably light, but her current sensitivity to sound made each knock jarring. Trying to ignore the sudden tension she felt, Riku turned around and made her way to the door on sheer willpower, taking a breath before she opened it.

The face that greeted her smiled, but blurred before her eyes as Riku fought to act normally. Sabochi-san told her several things but she couldn't quite process any of them, only catching part of the question he'd said last. It wasn't enough for her to know how to answer, and when she only stared blankly at him without responding, he looked worried.

He reached out with a hand and the gesture jolted her out of her temporary daze. Riku wasn't sure exactly what she said, but suspected it was probably not as polite as she would have wanted. In any case, it was enough for him to leave her alone as she wished. She lay on the bed, above the covers, and waited it out.

It was times like these when the treacherous little thoughts would cross her mind, distracting her from the pain in her head by recalling other kinds of pain. What was she living for? The question haunted her; sometimes she wished it had been her, instead. After all, Risa, Riku, did it matter? They had struggled so much to be different, and yet they had looked exactly alike. Nothing could have erased the fact that the DNA that made every person unique in the world made them the same.

Riku turned on her side and curled up, never quite prepared for the migraine and its associated nausea for all its hated familiarity. She was glad that she had managed to send Sabochi-san away; she did not want him to see her like this or otherwise he would worry, maybe even call her parents—not that it would make a difference.

At least everything was as quiet as she could possibly have hoped for, except for the amplified sounds of her own uneven breathing, harsh to her ears. The increased sensitivity to sound had made it very difficult for her before. The only problem now was that the room was too bright, even with the curtains drawn.

Inwardly Riku cursed the photophobia that made it seem as if the sun were waiting for her just behind her closed eyelids. Like most sufferers of migraines, she wanted the comfort of the dark, needed it. The thought made her breath catch in her throat and she bit her lip.

It was probably only fair that the past night had hurt her as much as she'd hurt Dark. The stress of it probably had brought on the migraine. The universe had its unique sense of irony, Riku thought sardonically, and its own form of justice. If only she could forget how he had looked, the expression on his face when he had accepted the blame she'd placed on him for Risa's death.

Risa. It was always Risa, and she always between them. But now that she was truly gone, forever gone, all Riku wanted was for her twin to be between them still. Her head started to throb again, bringing tears of pain to the corners of her eyes as she searched for something positive in all of this.

Well, it looked like she had at last succeeded in driving Dark away for good. It was hard to imagine how they had come to this. Her accusation four long years ago that he was a pervert seemed now just as silly as Risa's dreamy adoration of him had been. She wished that she didn't remember what he had said last night word for word.

_I'm here. Please let me be here for you. _

"But you're not," she answered tiredly into the semi-darkness, to a ghost. It should have been a relief, especially given that she hated for anyone to see her weak like this, but it wasn't. She couldn't convince herself that that was what she wanted, and she couldn't forget that she was the one who had pushed him away.

Riku crossed her arms against her chest, hugging herself, and only wished she didn't feel so alone.

* * *

The knocking on the door brought her out of the half-daze she had fallen into, but Riku was too tired to get up to properly answer it. When she tried to speak, her dry throat made her voice come out in a croak. A brief glance at the glowing red numbers of the clock told her that it was one in the afternoon. She sat up in bed, groggily turning toward the door when it opened, expecting to see Sabochi-san again. The light from the hall stung her eyes but she ignored it when she made out the tall silhouette.

Was it…?

She saw the figure's hand fumble for the light switch and spoke instinctively. "No, please don't!"

"Riku? What's wrong?"

She turned toward the voice, a sharp stab of disappointment going through her. "Daisuke."

He came to the bed as she sagged back onto the pillows. His hand touched her shoulder and Riku could sense that he was waiting for his eyes to adjust to the dimness of the room. When they did, he looked at her. "Sabochi-san said that you weren't feeling well this morning, so I wanted to see you myself. Are you all right?"

"I only have a mild headache left," Riku said untruthfully. "I'm sorry it's so dark in here, but light makes it worse."

"Shouldn't you go see a doctor? You look so pale, Riku." Daisuke put a hand on her forehead to check for fever, not seemingly much relieved to find that her temperature was normal. Riku watched the emotions cross his eyes, as guileless now as they always had been, and understood that he was thinking of Risa and how Riku now looked like her twin. It surprisingly was a source of comfort rather than hurt.

"I'll be fine," she said wanly but with a genuine smile. "Why did you come?"

"Maybe I wanted to see you," he answered with a teasing smile that was reminiscent of someone else's, and Riku narrowed her eyes at him in warning, prompting him to laugh. "I'm being honest, Riku. You've changed so much and not at all. I'm not sure what to make of it."

"You, too," she said, and then spoke before she thought. "Who knew that you would end up resembling…ah…"

Fortunately Daisuke interrupted without realizing that she had stopped. "A lot of people say that, but I think—well, I _know—_we're still completely different. Speaking of Dark, I thought he might be tired so I came to take over for him and to see if he found out anything. Where is he?"

"I don't know," was the only thing she could say.

He frowned at her answer. "He was supposed to be watching over you, but here you are, all sick, and he's gone?"

She closed her eyes briefly, trying to seem neutral about it. At the same time, the guilt in Riku's chest forced her to say something, before Daisuke got angry for the wrong reasons. "First of all, I don't need anyone to watch over me. Also, he left because we fought, so don't blame him."

"You fought?" Daisuke repeated, not really making it a question. "Again?"

She shrugged carefully. "It does seem inevitable, doesn't it?"

Rather than deflecting his interest, her flippant reply seemed to increase it. "What was it over?"

"I don't think it matters, right?"

Daisuke sighed. "Riku, can't you be a little more…forgiving of him? No one's faultless."

He was so earnest. She gave a sharp laugh that sent pain through her skull, but prevented her from saying something like _believe me, I know._ "I used to have a goal, you know. My mother asked me when I was little to try to do at least one kind thing for someone once a week. I was just thinking this morning that I can't remember the last thing I did for someone. I've only been paying attention to myself, as if I can't see anything else in the world. I guess I've become a bad person."

"You were always caring for Risa. Do you remember when you fell off the cliff, trying to get her hat back?"

She smiled at the memory. "Of course, how could I forget something like that? You saved me and then ended up having to carry me all the way back up." Even now, she blushed a little at the memory. "I think it was one of the first things that made me admit to myself that I liked you."

Faint color appeared in his cheeks as they sat through the slightly awkward but intimate moment. Daisuke moved a chair to the bedside so he could sit down. "Feeling better?" he finally asked.

Riku was surprised to discover that she really did. When she looked at him, she realized that Daisuke had never been fooled by her assertion that she'd been feeling better. It meant a lot to her for him to be here; after Risa was gone, when she first started getting the migraines, she hadn't had anyone. "A lot, actually. Thanks, Daisuke."

She offered a hand to him and he took it. "I guess we haven't changed, at least in all the ways that matter," he mused. "How did you become such a lady, though?"

"Hours and hours of training," Riku told him. "You wouldn't believe how many hours. I pitied my poor teacher when I wasn't resenting her. Risa was her model student, I was probably her nightmare."

"I think she only succeeded in changing the outside, if anything," he said. He lifted her hand, noting the perfectly shaped nails, the lotion-soft skin. "It's hard to believe we're supposed to be adults now. Time goes by so fast, it's almost like we don't have time to live."

"Some don't," she said bluntly. Both of them knew what she was saying. Daisuke looked at her as if he had expected her response, though.

"Promise me one thing, Riku. Don't let what happened to Risa change you until you're afraid to live. I know that it would probably make you angry…to say that she lived the way she wanted to, and died the same way. But she did, she made the most of what she was given."

"Waiting for someone who never showed up?" Riku retorted bitterly, swallowing past the tightness in her throat.

"How can anything ever come true if you don't first dare to dream?" Daisuke demanded.

"I don't know." She looked away from him and toward the balcony doors, just as they opened.

Dark took a step in and then stopped abruptly as he saw her with Daisuke.

There was a heartbeat of dead silence, maybe two. The slight sound of the breeze from the open door broke them out of the motionless moment.

"Where have you been?" Daisuke asked him, without seeming to notice how stiffly Dark was standing. In any case, Riku felt him let go of her hand, keeping the motion discreet. She felt a faint flush tinge her cheeks, almost as self-conscious as her fourteen year old self had been when she'd first held hands with Daisuke.

Instead of answering, Dark asked the same question Riku had, earlier. "Why are you here?"

"I thought you might want to switch off, go back and get some rest while I stayed with Riku." Daisuke looked at her and smiled. "And no, I wasn't lying before. I _did_ want to see you."

"I'm not tired," Dark said, enunciating every word. "We'll be fine."

It was a curt and not exactly subtle dismissal, and Daisuke's brow darkened with anger at it. "Really? So where were you when she was sick?"

Feeling as if she was caught in the crossfire, Riku looked to Dark just in time to see the surprise in his eyes, quickly chased by something darker. His eyes moved to her, taking in her appearance, and she had to wonder if she looked as ill as she still somewhat felt.

Saying that she was all right now probably wasn't going to do anything to help the tension between the two, but she had to try. Maybe she couldn't appeal to Dark, but it took two to start an argument. "Daisuke, please don't fight. You know that I'm fine now."

Because she had ignored him and addressed Daisuke instead, Dark looked from Daisuke to her, and then back again. Riku bit her lip as she watched them exchange an enigmatic stare, not realizing she held her breath until she released it. It seemed as if Daisuke relented, appeased by whatever he saw in his former other self's eyes.

"Do this right, Dark," he said briefly.

Riku thought that Dark would make another angry retort, but he didn't. "I will."

Daisuke turned to her with a rueful expression. "Well, I'll see you another time, Riku. Remember what you promised me, and I'll remember what I promised you."

It took only a second to remember what he referred to, that he would never forget Risa. Riku smiled her thanks and had just enough time to say goodbye before he left, shutting the door behind him firmly. The sight of that closing door made her anxiety ratchet up a notch as she avoided looking directly back at Dark. Unfortunately, it was about as impossible as avoiding the darkness of night.

"What happened to you?" he asked her, coming to stand by the bedside just as Daisuke had done before. Judging by his tone, even if he'd gotten over his anger toward Daisuke, he still wasn't feeling too friendly toward her.

Her half sitting position in bed recalled memories of last night, and it made her feel too vulnerable. She knew that he was angry even if he seemed to be trying to hide it, and it upset her. Without answering, Riku summoned up her energy and swung her legs off the bed, sitting on its edge.

"What were you doing with Daisuke, anyway? You know that he has Satoshi!" Dark's even tone cracked on the name. "Or do you think he still likes you?

She ignored his words, blocked them out as best she could, even though they hurt, physically and emotionally. Was it only minutes ago that she had told Daisuke she was feeling better? The hot tears welling up in her eyes were partly caused by the sharp, painful pulsing in her head and partly by something else.

Even without glancing at him, Riku knew that he was still looking down at her bowed head, and she hated it. Hated the feeling of inferiority, hated the feeling that she owed him something, not the other way around, even when he was saying things like that to her. Without considering the cost of sudden movement, she stood up so she would be a little more level with him.

The blood rushing away from her head made a dim roaring sound in her ears as she gasped, her vision going black.

Dark cursed as she staggered and he reached out to grasp her arms, but it wasn't his touch that was on her mind now, but the sickness that roiled in her stomach. Her head spun with vertigo while colors around her seemed to bleed into each other, creating warped shapes. Riku wrenched away from him, one hand covering her mouth, and ran for the sink, where she retched. There was nothing in her stomach, nothing to come up, but the convulsions hurt.

"Riku!" A hand clasped her shoulder while the other helped keep her hair back from her face. She gripped the edge of the counter with whitened fingers, taking slow, deep breaths…waiting, as always, for the world to stop spinning around her, not that it ever would.

Eventually she rinsed her mouth and poured herself a cup of water with shaky hands, taking a few sips of it before she gave up. The nausea hadn't been unexpected; it was a common enough effect of migraines, but his presence was. Even if she was loath to admit it, the arm across her shoulders had helped steady her with its warm, heavy weight.

She finally looked up at the mirror, seeing her dark, wide eyes and pale face. Dark appeared behind her shoulder like the phantom of his name. Having said so much before, he was curiously unquestioning now, she thought, but without much rancor.

"You should go," she told him.

His hand tightened minutely on her shoulder, and she remembered to shrug a little, indicating that she no longer wanted him to be touching her. He complied with her silent request, but still stood there, looking at her through the mirror. She knew what he was about to ask before he said it.

"Do you really want me to?"

She hesitated, her ready-made reply dying on her lips before she uttered it. It wasn't the question that surprised her, but the huskiness of his voice that he couldn't quite control. So instead of saying yes, she scrambled for something else to say.

"It won't help either of us for you to be here."

"Are you so sure?" he asked.

The seconds ticked past and Riku felt caught in the web of time. In the end, she shook her head no.

Dark looked at her and she felt as if he just barely smiled.

* * *

A/N: **Please review**! Thanks – E.D.


	6. Release

**Dare You to Live**

By ElveNDestiNy

A/N: Based on the handful of reviews, I don't think that many people are interested in this, so I might shorten it so I can finish it more quickly. I know people ask why the popularity of this story matters at all and usually it doesn't as much, but the thing is, I never planned to write this story. I have other interests that more people share and when I see how excited they get about my writing, it makes me want to write more for them. So, since I put a lot into this story, it's all the more depressing when I get little response.

To all the people who _have_ reviewed, thank you. Even if it's just a 'nice story' or 'please continue,' it makes me feel better about using my time for this instead of other things.

**- Release -**

Something had eased the tension between them, something that might have been due to Dark's conscious effort after he had realized how sick Riku had been, or might have not. Either way, Riku felt as if some heavy pressure on her shoulders had lifted so she could breathe more easily.

She slept the rest of the afternoon away, more from avoidance of life than any need for rest. The worst of it was over and usually she pushed herself to recovery, unwilling to spend any extra moment dwelling on her sickness, but this time she didn't. Of course, the nightmares were still as vivid as before and she woke twice from them, gasping and struggling to control herself.

Riku couldn't scream because he was there, and she couldn't cry because he was there. Dark sat in a chair beside her bed as if she were a patient in need of care, and because she didn't know what to do about it, she let him stay. She didn't know what he was doing, but each time she had woken up, he had been awake too, and looking at her. She focused on his presence to remind herself why she couldn't afford to be weak, but his seeming concern unnerved her.

It had been a very long time since there had been anyone to look at her. Her parents had never cared outside of duty, and the one person she had thought cared, Daisuke, had stopped. Her friends had cared about her, but after the accident, it had just been a matter of time until the calls and invitations stopped, and Riku couldn't blame them. The person they had thought they had known had disappeared.

It was dark when she finally woke up and realized that she was definitely well enough to be hungry. That in itself was surprising; she couldn't remember the last time she had any appetite at all. It was dark and quiet in the room so she slid out of bed and went to draw open the curtain, illuminating the room with moonlight.

Riku had assumed that Dark would have left, at least to eat, since he had been with her since the afternoon. Instead, she found him curled up in the chair sleeping, wings positioned around him protectively.

She drew in a deep breath, feeling as if something had changed and wondering why her chest felt tight. She had never seen him look defenseless like that, not in the role that he had assumed of the phantom thief, but just like herself. The expression on his face was gentle and she wondered if he dreamed. Riku hesitated, trying not to think too much about what complicated emotions he stirred in her heart just by being there. He had to be hungry.

"Dark…?" When he didn't at stir at first, she reached out to touch his shoulder, but found herself staring into alert violet eyes.

She had meant to ask him whether he wanted food, but found herself speechless at the complete change that had come over him, a shimmering tension that made her anxious.

"Is there something wrong?" he asked, looking around the room, and then at her. The direct stare made her realize that she had just been staring, and Riku was flustered all over again.

"No, nothing like that. I guess—I shouldn't have woken you. But I wanted to ask if you were hungry."

Dark looked at her for a moment, and then started laughing. Riku stared at him incredulously, but the sound was beautiful and before she realized it, she was smiling as well.

"Well, it depends on what you have to feed me," he replied finally, the slight sense of laughter still edging his voice.

She raised her eyebrows at his challenge, but simply shrugged. "Are you coming or not?"

He followed her to the kitchen, where he leaned against the wall and watched as she pulled out the simple ingredients for _omuraisu_, the Japanese-styled western omelet with rice. For a moment she wondered if he was thinking of Risa, but the thought was strangely without bitterness. Riku remembered her twin's failed experiments in this very kitchen, but it only brought a sad smile to her face, missing the sharp edge of pain that was always there before. Perhaps it was because she knew without ever looking at Dark that she was not the only one thinking of these memories.

When she was done, she sat down at the table with Dark, looking down at the comforting combination of softly cooked omelet, wrapped around the sweet ketchup-flavored rice. She had added tiny bits of chicken to give the simple meal a little more substance. They said their thanks together and then without even being aware of it, Riku found herself looking anxiously at Dark, wondering if he would like it. It had also been a long time since she had cooked for anyone.

"What is this?" Dark asked curiously, much to her surprise, but before she had even opened her mouth to tell him, he promptly took a bite. His eyes widened and Riku bit her lip, wondering if he was about to offer scathing criticism, or even worse, polite but forced praise. In few moments, however, after he chewed and swallowed, he turned to her with a wide smile. "It's good!"

A half-dozen retorts sprang to her mind at that, especially over the fact that he hadn't seemed to have ever had such a common dish, but Riku settled for simply nodding. A warm feeling of relief swept through her despite her reluctance to admit to herself that his opinion had mattered to her. "I'm glad you like it," she said and when she ate, the flavor seemed even better just from his enthusiasm.

"Let's go somewhere," Dark suggested after he had finished – he ate startlingly quickly, but then again, he was male. Riku cut her omelet into the last few bites, wondering at his sudden proposal. "You haven't gone anywhere since you've come back, right?"

"No," she answered slowly, feeling his concentration on her. "I don't know…I'm not sure that's a good idea."

"Why not?" Although his question was challenging, he seemed to think of something and became unusually subdued. Looking at him, Riku guessed what he was wondering, and his next question confirmed it. "Are you still feeling sick?"

"No, of course not," she hastened to assure him. He cocked his head, asking again without words. "It's just… Well, it's so late at night, where would we go, anyway?"

Even to her own ears, the excuse sounded as if it were exactly that. "You can't stay locked up in this house all the time," he said, the smallest hint of frustration edging his voice. "Riku, I just want you to live a little. To know that there's more to life than existence and all the pain, all the sorrow."

"Is there?" she asked, just as he said, "I want to be the one to show you."

The silence after their overlapping voices was all the more profound. He looked as if she rejected him, and she wished she could have taken back the two simple words that had just slipped out of her. "Dark—"

"Never mind," he interrupted. "You should probably rest, anyway." Dark ran a hand through his unruly hair and she almost wanted to touch him, to siphon off some of the anger that she sensed. The impulse was unexpected.

"Why are you angry?" Somehow Riku couldn't let it go like she usually did. "Are you angry at me?"

"No, Riku. I'm angry _for _you; I'm angry that this world is so hurtful to you, and you just bear it without ever seeing the other side, the beauty that it can also offer." Dark stood up and went to wash the dishes as she absorbed his words, a little stunned.

Finally, Riku stood up as well and faced him, watching his quick, economical movements from the side. It seemed oddly mundane, the whole scene of it – Dark in a kitchen, with plates in his hand, and yet it made her feel strange, just as his words did. What did he mean by them? More importantly, why did he always act as if he cared so much?

"Let's go," she said when he was done. "I don't care where."

Riku could tell that she had surprised him, but he studied her with unfathomable eyes, and simply nodded in the end. "We'll go out to the sea, get some air."

The protests her mind immediately thought of died on her lips, although Riku could not imagine going out to the sea at night, in the darkness. Instead, she went to change into more suitable clothing and pulled on one of her thicker jackets. Dark told her he wanted to pick up some things and then disappeared.

When she came down dressed, he still wasn't back so she waited. If the house seemed to big and empty without her twin, it seemed even more so now. She had gotten used to the presence of him, however much she felt it was an irritant. Dark finally returned, carrying an oblong shaped bag slung across his shoulder by a thick strap, as if it were some kind of equipment.

"I'm ready," she said to him, and he smiled.

* * *

At night the sea was wild and almost a little frightening in its untamed power, made more potent by the fact that it was veiled in darkness. Still, Riku liked it—she even liked the darkness, because all her senses narrowed to her hearing, and the sound of the waves was soothing. The stars above seemed clearer because of the darkness of the water, where no human lights could penetrate. Here, on the edge of a vast expanse of land and water, Riku could almost feel as if no one else existed but herself and Dark. Fancifully, she let herself compare it to the person beside her, and wondered why she felt as if Dark's heart was as obscure and constant, and yet endlessly changing, as the sea.

If Dark was entertaining such similar thoughts, he didn't show it. Instead, he finally set down the bag he carried. As she looked toward the sky she could almost feel him taking deep breaths of the salt-flavored wind, icy against their faces. The cold that made her shiver also seemed to energize her, though. Riku would have expected to feel numb from it, but instead it only made her self-aware in some way, because of its contrast with the warmth of her body.

"What is it?" she asked, unable to restrain her curiosity in the end when Dark knelt next to the bag. He unzipped it and began to take out an assortment of metal and canvas.

"A kite," Dark answered simply. "Have you ever flown one?"

She had, but not since early childhood. "Can you fly one in the dark?"

"We have such irrational fears of the dark," he said with that too-knowing smile. "But anything can be possible in the dark. Every wish fulfilled, every desire imagined, every dream dreamt."

She didn't know what to say to that, so with cold fingers she helped hold things while he put together the kite, a large silvery mystical creature of some sort, almost like an angel. It was only when it was almost completed that Riku had the nerve to ask.

"If you can fly, how can flying a kite possibly be special for you?"

He laughed at that. "If you can run, why is it such a pleasure to take a stroll sometimes?"

The cold wind was blowing strongly, whipping strands of their hair across their faces. Riku wasn't sure if they would even be able to get the kite up, and indeed, they tried again and again until she was breathless and warm from running along the shore. They left footprints in the sand, which gleamed almost silvery white in the refractions of water and moonlight.

Again and again, and the kite still would not catch the wind properly, and Riku could feel herself growing tired, her limbs slower and breaths heavier… Then she could feel liquid drops slide down her cheeks, turning cold just moments after they were warm, and was surprised to think that they came from her eyes, not the spray of salt water. The sharpness of the disappointment was unwelcome; she hadn't known that she would care so much, and yet, she did.

"There's another way," Dark finally said to her, raising his voice to be heard over the wind and the waves. Before she could ask, he spread open his wings and Riku realized with a shiver what he intended to do.

He could fly the kite up there himself, up into that tumultuous, windy sky. Dark took the kite in both hands, told her to hold the spool of thread, and then began to run. He was ahead of her in just moments and suddenly she couldn't let him go.

"Dark!" Riku sprinted after him, mustering up some hidden source of energy, hands outstretched to stop him. Everything was an odd kind of panic, her heart pounding in her chest as loud as the waves, the wind from his wings buffeting her, and then his wings actually clipping her as she caught as his arm.

Dark turned immediately, drawing his wings in close to his body, and caught her as she stumbled to her knees in front of him, hand still clenched on his arm. "Don't go, Dark! It's not safe," she managed, and felt like a fool for saying it, for hearing her voice shrill and desperate, the note of need so clear.

"Riku—" he said, and she thought he looked at her rather helplessly, probably wondering how he could have ended up with someone half insane. "Riku, it's all right. I'm not leaving you."

She wanted to tell him that he wasn't making any sense, that she had said it wasn't _safe_ and nothing about leaving, but knew that it would've only been a lie. "It's not safe," she repeated.

"I'll show you," he said, and then somehow, not through strength but by some magic, slipped free of her vise-like hold. Her left hand gripped the spool by its wooden center piece, and she felt it spin as the thread unraveled.

Dark took off in a blur, running across the packed sand, skirting close to the edge of the water. For a moment he seemed to hover awkwardly between land and air, and then in the next Riku was concentrating only on letting the string out as Dark drew himself and the kite far, far up into the sky.

Before she even had time to gasp at the force in her hands as the string suddenly drew taut, Dark was already besides her again, steadying her hands with his. She shivered from cold and he let go to step behind her, arms coming around her to hold her and to cradle her hands as she held the string. In moments she could feel the heat of him against her back, his hands warming her cold ones. When they had it under control, when her body had got over its shock and sudden discovery, she finally remembered to look up.

From beneath, the kite was only a silvery dot in the sky, sometimes catching the moonlight and during other times disappearing altogether into the blackness of the sky. As with the ocean, there was something different about flying a kite during darkness that wasn't like any other experience Riku had ever had.

She could not see the string that controlled the kite, so that it would have looked as if it were magically tied to her. At the same time, she could feel the power in its resistance, its struggle to break free. From below, against the dark sky, it looked as if it were a faint silver-white bird flying in the curtain between two worlds.

It was exhilarating. It was, in some strange way, also terrifying. It was the combination of feelings, the way Dark felt as if he were wrapped around her, his presence vital and protective…even the brush of his arms along the sides of her breasts, that made her entire body go simultaneously tense and powerless. He let his wings form a semicircle around them, shielding them slightly from the cold, buffeting winds driven by the ocean. All of it, the thoughts on her mind, the sensations of it, both physical and emotional – all of it combined together in a way that was simply overwhelming.

Riku half turned toward him, still in the circle of his arms but able to look at him, because she needed to see his expression, even if she didn't understand yet why he would do this for her.

"I've always loved kites," she said to him, remembering. "When I was a child, we used to fly them all the time. Once, I was flying my favorite kite alone when the string broke and it flew away, and after that, I stopped. I don't know why, but something about it changed. I didn't feel the joy in it any more."

"And now?" he asked. "Or should I answer for you?"

"Can you?" She wasn't sure if it was her way of testing or another moment of doubt, but he smiled with the confidence that she had so hated and perhaps admired, and Riku finally saw the understanding in it as well.

"Ah… Although the kite is very far away, there is both a sense of certainty and fear," he began. "Because the kite is bound to you by the string held in your hand, but at the same time, should you accidentally let go or if the fragile string should break, then the kite would simply fly away."

_Like you?_ Riku wondered. "What string ties us together, Dark?"

"One that cannot be seen, that can only be felt," he answered. "The red string of fate."

At another time she would have laughed, but something tightened around her heart in her chest, and Riku said nothing at all. He was looking at her thoughtfully. She tried to smile, to pretend as if she was unaffected, but soon found herself lost in those dark eyes with their incredibly beautiful color. She looked away, the abrupt movement freeing the hair that had been tucked behind her ear. It hid his face from her, but she could still sense his gaze.

She looked out blindly at the white-tipped waves, the only part that could be seen in the darkness, and was so intent in fact that the touch of Dark's fingers against her cheekbone caught her completely unaware. She flinched. He pulled his hand back immediately and drew a slight breath. As her hair fell against her face again, she realized that all he'd intended to do was tuck it behind her ear, which she did now herself. She looked at him, trying to offer a rueful smile.

His own expression was carefully blank. He had let go of her and the loss seemed too noticeable, accentuated by the cold. Riku turned around completely to face him and reached up with her hands to cup his face. It wasn't until the thread caught in her fingers that she realized she had let go of the spool of thread.

She felt the thread slide through her fingers as the kite was suddenly released, succumbing to the force of the winds that lifted it higher. Riku grasped frantically for the thin thread, knowing it was too late, knowing it was lost.

But the string somehow drew taut again.

She gasped as her hand closed around the thread, and looked down to see that Dark had caught the spool in his hands and was holding it securely. Riku touched it wonderingly for a moment and then reached up to trace the edge of Dark's chin. She told him her thanks in her touch, for this but also for everything.

"Can I kiss you?" she asked very softly, cheek pressed against his shoulder.

He lowered his head and skimmed his lips across her forehead, a chaste prelude to the hot meeting of their mouths, and then all there was left was the bittersweet taste of love, and the salty remembrance of the cold sea.

* * *

A/N: **Please review**, because…well, I'll be sad if you don't and happy if you do :D


	7. Revive

**Dare You to Live**

By ElveNDestiNy

A/N: I got tired of dividing up this story by simply assigning a "Part X" to the sections, so I went back and added chapter titles. The "Re-" thing was a coincidence, but I thought it was appropriate given the twins' and Rika's names. Also, I don't know if anyone would care, but one song in particular inspired me. It's "**You Look So Fine**" by the band Garbage. I saw it in a DarkxRisa AMV by neko-chan, who makes gorgeous D.N. Angel tributes.

Thank you so much to all the reviewers, especially Katherine Daystar. Sometimes the hard part isn't in the writing, but in finding the people who might appreciate reading it – or who might want to read it at all.

**- Revive -**

By the time they finally thought about returning to the house, the sky was lightening into lovely watercolored shades of red and orange. It was cold to the point that Riku couldn't suppress a few shivers, but the overall effect was cutting and sharp rather than numbing. Everything was intense, as if all her senses had flared to life so that her perception of the world almost painful in all its clarity.

Without much ado, Dark had taken her and lifted them into the sky, Riku barely stopping herself from instinctively struggling at his sudden absolute control over her body. It was like him not to ask, just to add that extra element of thrill from the initial shock and resistance, the fear of falling. If nothing else, Dark had proven that he could be a perfect gentleman—when he wanted to be.

Although they had walked to the sea in the first place, the thought of walking back simply never came up. It was harder to breathe in the thin air but it was still the last thing on her mind. Her back was warm against Dark's chest, his arms solid bands across her chest, just below her breasts. She felt his impossible strength in the way that his muscles tensed on every stroke of his wings that propelled them forward. Like the best athletes, he made it all look natural, graceful, effortless, when it was the exact opposite.

It wasn't the most comfortable thing and it was slightly frightening. She could not remember ever being completely conscious while with him in this way, but as Riku relaxed, trusting him to carry her, the discomfort gradually became a minor thing in her awareness. It was only a slight reminder from her body that she was flightless without him. Sometime during this change she realized that the flight was the best gift he could have given her, because it was something only he could give.

"You're beautiful," she said into the rushing air, thinking that the wind would take it away but wanting to say it aloud, as proof to herself. Her heart was so full that she felt as if it could burst. There was something in her helplessness that magnified the fire that seemed to rush through her body, making it airy, a complement to her sudden and fierce joy. He held her even tighter, as if to reassure himself that she wouldn't separate from him.

"That's a bad description for a man," Dark told her with a laugh that she could feel, although the little thrill she felt was overtaken by their landing. In one moment they were still in the air, and in the next she felt them become subject to the demands of gravity again, the solid ground beneath her shaky legs a sudden disappointment after the freedom of the air. Somehow the feeling of relief, welcome as it was, took secondary place.

Riku waited for her heart to resume a more sedate beat and then realized that he hadn't let go yet and that she didn't want him to. Could so much change in a matter of hours? Or was it that it had always been like this, and she was only now beginning to accept these truths about herself and about him?

"Beautiful," she said again stubbornly, wishing she could see his expression but not wanting to give up the press of his body against hers.

"Why?" he asked, more curious than flattered.

"It's not about the way you look," she said, surprising even herself because she had meant to make a flippant reply with the opposite sentiment. Embarrassed, she tugged a little and he released her.

"Answer enough," he said while watching her unlock the front door, and there was a kind of satisfaction in his voice now. "But one day I'd like to hear the rest of it too."

Riku smiled slightly, challenging Dark to try to get anything more out of her, but they were both distracted by a white envelope that had been wedged through the doors and which now fell to the ground as Riku pushed open the door. Dark snatched it up, eyes scanning the outside, but it was blank.

"What is that?" Riku asked, but before she could object, Dark had already opened it. In any case, the envelope wasn't actually sealed. Riku snatched the paper from Dark, annoyed that he was going through her mail.

"Give it back," said Dark, holding out his hand. "Riku, it's probably dangerous—"

She unfolded the paper inside, but it was blank as well. Puzzled, Riku was about to turn it over when Dark took it from her again.

"It's not dangerous, there isn't even anything written on it," she told him, still piqued. "It's just a blank envelope with a blank piece of paper."

"Even so, it might be a message," Dark muttered, but he didn't discover any writing either, although he examined the paper closely.

Riku watched, not as concerned. "It's probably just a mistake."

"Then you don't mind if I keep it?" asked Dark.

Riku lifted a shoulder in a half-shrug, although she still couldn't believe how fast he'd acted to get the envelope. "You shouldn't have taken it in the first place," she said.

"I didn't want you to find something bad."

"What, like death threats?" But even though Riku intended to make it sound ridiculous, she couldn't help but remember that she'd glimpsed someone or something outside her house that day, which was why Dark had been here in the first place.

Dark followed up on her thought by giving her a chiding look. "You should take this seriously. I'm guarding you."

The blatant reminder that he was accompanying her out of some misguided sense of obligation didn't soothe Riku's feelings. She glared at the white envelope in his hand. "And who's going to guard me from you?"

Dark shrugged. "I guess you'll just have to take your chances," he said. "The lesser of two evils, right?"

"Pervert," Riku muttered underneath her breath, but she had spent the entire night talking to him, close to him, and the memory of their earliest past only made her think of how much things had changed between them.

They made their way into the quiet house, Riku finally looking at him. Amusement shaped his lips into a wry smile, distracting her until she realized that he was following her into her bedroom.

He still smelled like the wind, as if the fresh scent of nothingness could cling to his feathers and wings, and suddenly Riku knew what she wanted. The clarity she had felt, the aliveness, came back, soothing away her nervousness and doubts. This was the natural culmination of all these days, all these years, even, wasn't it? This, now, was her chance to prove that she could belong in this lovely and careless world like everyone else did. She wanted to partake of the happiness, the vibrancy.

Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless, someone had quoted at her when she was only a child, and she had grown up with the phrase ringing in her head. That was why she had never wanted to be beautiful the way Risa had, not until she had fallen for Daisuke. But beauty was a thing hard to define.

She left the lights off in her room; it was bright outside and the curtains were half open, letting in enough daylight to illuminate everything. Dark followed her like a shadow until Riku abruptly turned to face him, feeling the heaviness of anticipation at the bottom of her stomach.

"Are you tired?"

The question took him by surprise and he hesitated. "No," he replied, and sighed involuntarily as she reached out to touch the glistening black feathers of his wings. She remembered that he had always been awake, watching over her, except for that time when he had left. How could he not be exhausted?

"You need to sleep," Dark told her, taking her by the arm and leading her to the bed. Riku obediently sat but looked closely at his expression. It was carefully neutral, and for some reason, made her lose her courage.

"I will," she said, wanting to tell him to do the same.

"I'll be waiting outside when you wake," he said, looking toward the French windows, but she shook her head negatively, not trusting herself to speak quite yet. He seemed to sense that she was holding something back. "Riku?"

"If you can…"

"What is it?" His voice was gentle and patient, another side of Dark that wasn't often seen. She wondered how much more there was to discover about him.

"If you can…" – _stay_; but for some reason, it was something else that came out – "hold me…" She couldn't say anything more and she should have been overcome with shame by the sheer neediness of that statement, but Riku was caught like a deer in headlights, unable to even look away from him.

The shock of it shivered through her, until she wished that she could disappear. How could she plead with him like that? How could she ask, no, _demand _his attention, like some spoiled child?

Dark studied her with a gaze that was a little puzzled, but so warm that she felt as if it were slowly burning her. She licked her lips, trying to force some rational explanation out of her dry throat.

"You should rest too," she stammered out. "I just thought that, if you were here with me, maybe I won't dream."

Every word Riku added only increased her discomfort, until she felt as if all her thoughts were transparent to him, all the things she didn't want to admit. But she didn't take any of it back.

"Is it so bad to ask something of me, Riku?" He made a motion as if to reach out to her, but midway through changed his mind and let his hand fall back to his side. "Is it so hard to trust me?"

"I have no right to ask anything of you," she said in a low voice.

"It's not like that," Dark retorted, and she would have gotten off the bed to restlessly pace around, but he was standing too close to her. He put his hands on her shoulders and locked her gaze with his own. "You're not alone, Riku. You don't have to take everything onto yourself, by yourself."

He saw that she didn't believe it and understood the answer she kept to herself: _she had to be strong, independent, because the people she needed left her. _Seeing it, he kissed her on her forehead. "We're not as different as you think, Riku."

She looked up at him, finding it a relief to redirect the conversation to a subject other than herself. "What do you mean?"

He shook his head. "I'll tell you sometime later."

"Dark," she protested, but whatever else she might have said was lost to a yawn. As Riku blinked away tears of fatigue, she cursed her own stupidity for putting Dark in such an awkward position, if he was intending to leave, by making a big deal out of it. Dark seemed to realize the same thing, and a heavy silence lingered between them for a moment, until Riku failed to suppress another yawn.

"Risa's room…" her heart still tripped when she said the name, but it was all right when it was with Dark. "It had a separate bathroom, if you want to shower."

Dark nodded at her suggestion, taking up the peace offering, heading toward the door between the twins' bedroom. Left alone in the bedroom, Riku flopped back onto the bed for a moment, sighing with relief. She still couldn't believe that she had something like that to Dark, and it was beginning to seem more and more like a fragment from a bad dream. Soothed by the thought that Dark certainly knew that she was tired, and so probably wouldn't hold it against her, Riku forced herself to get up and grab clothes.

She headed toward her own bathroom, estimating the time it would take for her to shower, change, and slip quietly into bed at last. There was no way she would be out before Dark, so he definitely could leave if he wanted to. Perfect.

None of it covered the fact that, despite what it costing her pride, she still very much wanted for him to stay.

* * *

She was starting to think of all the things that she'd forgotten in the wake of her twin's death. It had been a long time since she'd even questioned what she was doing with her life. Her academic studies hadn't suffered despite everything, but Riku had given up all her thoughts of the future once she had been dragged down into the problems of the present.

What did it mean for Dark to be bringing out these things in her, pushing her toward the future with everything that he did? She wondered what Dark thought of the future, now that he had one and was no longer quite the same phantom thief he had been. Was that why he said that they weren't different, because he, too, was unsure?

Riku scoffed at the notion and reluctantly opened the bathroom door, having leant on it for the past ten or so minutes. She was well aware that her own cowardice had led her to stubbornly remain in her bath until she'd wrinkled like a prune, but every time she thought of how she'd brazenly asked Dark to stay with her, to hold her, she'd stayed a few minutes more, cheeks flaming even though there was no one to see.

She quietly made her way back to her bed without turning on the lights, moving slowly by memory and feel. Even though it was daylight outside, the curtains had been drawn, as they hadn't been before, so Dark was probably gone. Her avoidance strategy had paid off after all, although Riku knew it was only a temporary fix to a problem that was growing with every hug and kiss they exchanged. She reached down blindly to draw back the covers on her bed, but before her fingers touched the cloth, a slight sound made her snatch back her hand.

She stilled, listening intently, and caught the soft sound of breathing. Riku bit back a gasp, unable to believe that he had_ acquisitioned her bed_ while she had been moping in the bathroom.

Well, she had asked him to, but still…

_This is Dark, what __exactly did you expect_? she reminded herself, while another part of her wondered whether she was really losing her mind.

Now that she stared hard at the bed, eyes adjusting to the dim light that filtered through the heavy curtains, she could just make out the slight outline of a peacefully sleeping form right in the middle of it. She couldn't be sure how much was really picked out by her eyes and how much was made from her imagination.

Apparently this was Dark's plan on how they would avoid any awkward talking. Riku stood over the bed, debating her options, although her tired mind could only come up with two: get in, having gotten what she'd asked for, or sleep in Risa's room, demonstrating that she was unable to even handle a little intensive cuddling.

_Which she had asked for. _

Riku's mind kept circling back to that point, along with the thought that, if she were perfectly honest, she wanted him. She had wanted him even when Risa had wanted him. She had wanted him for so long, she didn't know what it was like not to want him close to her, if only for her to push him away. But after all the years, this was as close as she could probably get, and it would be such a waste of an opportunity… Realizing that her thoughts had taken her in a decidedly less than innocent direction, Riku lifted the covers and carefully slid in before she could change her mind.

Dark was sprawled out, long limbs claiming the majority of the bed. Riku balanced precariously on the edge, the sheets there cool against her body, trying not to move so that she wouldn't roll toward the middle, which was dipping slightly due to Dark's weight.

She had forgotten the wings. Riku froze in horror at the realization and hastily slid back off the edge, landing on her knees as she peered at the bed. Dark had told her that he could control whether they'd be present, but in his sleeping state, with no one to see them, he probably wasn't bothering to do whatever he did to keep them hidden. She'd probably been on the verge of crushing them with all her furtive movements, which on top of everything else would definitely wake him up.

To her relief, the most she found was a few stray black feathers, glossy and soft. They weren't the long flight feathers, but more like down. Riku wondered if he'd made his wings disappear in anticipation of her body being next to his in the small bed. Everything was happening too fast, her relationship with Dark suddenly changing so much, and yet all of it had been there all along, simmering under the surface as the years passed. Part of her loved every moment of it, loved that she felt so much with him.

After being so close to the warmth that Dark had radiated, Riku was miserably cold kneeling next to the bed. She held her breath as she climbed back in and then simply gave up, too tired to worry about the consequences of her actions. She turned on her side, facing away from him, and Dark's arm still touched her back, but it couldn't be helped. Riku felt her heart pounding inside her chest and called herself foolish; it wasn't as if they hadn't been more intimately pressed together before. Just hours ago, he'd been holding her in his arms.

This wasn't the same. The thin black sleeveless shirt he was wearing and the thin cotton of her shirt were flimsy barriers, unlike the jackets they had been wearing out by the sea. They were close enough together here to hear each other's breathing, while the ocean's roar had swallowed up all those small, personal sounds. That was power and freedom, this was safety and reassurance.

For the first time, Riku wondered what the future would hold for them, her heart aching at the thought. She almost thought she could feel his heartbeat, but it was only her own. She fought off her drowsiness, wanting to cherish the moment for as long as she could, but the comfort of all of it made it useless to resist.

Just as Riku was falling asleep, Dark rolled onto his side as well. One arm came up and over Riku, encircling her just beneath her breasts, while his body curled around hers. Vague warmth suddenly became a much more direct heat as his front molded to her back. Riku temporarily floated back to a semi-conscious state, wondering if Dark was doing this all on purpose as some kind of mind game…

But he was sleeping, and Riku, remembering how easily he was woken and how alert he forced himself to be, thought that he did not sleep deeply often, either. She remembered what he had said about the two of them not being so different. Together they'd found a kind of peace, one that wouldn't be interrupted by suspected dangers or nightmares.

_You're not alone either, Dark_, she thought. _You're here with me. _

* * *

A/N: If only a small fraction of the people who have this story on favorites and alerts would let me know what you like, don't like, etc., you would have a really happy author! So, **please review**!


	8. Recovery

**Dare You to Live**

By ElveNDestiNy

**- Recovery -**

_It just felt so right. _

Riku lay with her eyes closed and savored the feelings that filled her. She had immediately known where she was and with who when she woke up, so now she held herself still, aware of the rise and fall of her chest with each breath she took.

She had never woken up to find someone sharing her bed that wasn't her twin. When they were young, it had been normal to wake up with Risa beside her, whether they had come together out of habit, convenience, or simply for comfort. Nightmares, thunderstorms, childish fears, and later even broken hearts—Riku had been there for her twin through almost everything. But Risa had outgrown her fears around their tenth birthday and since then, she had never slept with anyone by her side.

He wasn't quite hugging her but all the same, there was an intimacy to the way that their bodies were aligned together and Riku was all too aware of it. Their hips and shoulders were touching and his hand gently clasped her arm as if he were afraid she would leave without his knowledge. He was simply _there_, a warm and very solid presence all along her side, and Riku had to fight the impulse to snuggle even closer to him.

All that, and she hadn't even looked at him yet. She had become so attuned to him in just these past few days and of course, the result was that she was more aware of herself than she had been in a long time. She was in bed with a supremely attractive man, so it was natural for her to want him. It was really that simple, but Riku still felt caught between guilt and embarrassment.

When she cautiously turned her head to look at him, she found him peacefully sleeping, looking absurdly cute with his relaxed expression and a few strands of his hair messily framing his face. He looked much too seductive even while unconscious and it didn't help that his lips were just slightly parted.

By the amount of light that was illuminating the room even with the curtains drawn, it was probably late afternoon. Riku sat up slowly and sighed, trying to remind herself that Dark most likely thought nothing of sleeping in the same bed as someone else, considering his playboy ways. Then again, the more she knew Dark, the more she thought that his charm and flirting were partly just an act to distract others from realizing that they knew nothing about him at all.

When she really thought about it, it didn't seem like Dark was the type to be unfaithful, either. She had little to back up this belief, but then again, it wasn't like she knew much about Dark's history—and he had 300 years of it, after all. She didn't even know how many girlfriends or lovers he had had since Risa, but that didn't stop her from feeling like the actual number was less than she would have guessed even a few days ago.

Great, now she was defending his honor in her head even while concluding that she had no logical basis for feeling as if she understood him. She shot him a quick glare that he, of course, could not appreciate. "What am I going to _do_ with you?" she whispered.

"Oh, there are so many things I would let you _do _to me, but for a start, how about thanking me for keeping you warm all last night?"

Riku let out a small shriek and hit Dark's shoulder purely out of reflex as he opened his eyes and propped himself up on his elbow, looking as if he were enjoying his morning way too much if the grin on his face was any indication.

"You were awake!" she accused while he grabbed the hand that had smacked him and brought it to his lips with a flourish.

"And now at your service," he agreed. "Did you like what you spent so much time looking at, Riku?"

"Maybe in your dreams, Dark," she bantered back without even thinking, surprising him and herself, as well as temporarily wiping the smile from his face. His eyes studied her for a moment before it reappeared—not the cocky self-appreciative smirk she would have expected, but a genuine smile.

Riku slid her legs to the edge of the bed and stood up, shoulders tense as she waited for his remark about the return of her old spirit. She became acutely aware that she was still clad only in her rather thin oversized cotton shirt, under which her legs were bare. Her sensitive breasts had peaked in the cold air so she momentarily hesitated, unsure whether she should cover herself. When the teasing she had expected didn't come, she turned to face him, raising an eyebrow in question before she could stop herself.

The way his gaze quickly slide away before returning to meet hers told Riku that she had caught him staring. It shouldn't have pleased her so much but it did because she could suddenly see how he was struggling with himself. He hadn't been a more or less perfect gentleman to her because he wasn't interested. On the contrary, she felt like she might melt beneath the heat in his eyes.

"What plans for today, Riku?" he purred.

"It's about time you left, don't you think?" she asked back, trying not to look at him as he rose and stretched, all while looking at her as if he were hungry for something more than breakfast. "Really, Dark. I don't need a bodyguard. If you stay longer—"

"Afraid of what might happen?" he interrupted. The words were teasing but the expression on his face had turned serious. There was a knowing look in his eyes, but again, it wasn't the kind that she expected. She got the impression that he wasn't so much worried by the sparks of desire between them as the possible emotional entanglement that came with them.

If she was sure of anything, she was sure that Dark wanted nothing to do with those attachments. After all, that was the reason why he had dumped her twin four years ago. Riku didn't want to fall into the same kind of trap.

"If you stay longer," she continued, ignoring his question, "you'll only be making this situation ridiculous. I'm not in any danger."

At that, Dark shifted to sit on the edge of the bed, looking up at her with some alarm. "Riku, Daisuke and I both—"

"You're both basing this on what? I've only received a _blank _death threat in a _blank_ envelope not even addressed to me," she pointed out. "If anything, the postman probably left it there by accident."

"You weren't imagining things that first night, Riku. You saw something, remember?"

"Like what, Dark? The ghost of my sister's killer? I can't even be sure myself that I saw anything, so what makes you so sure someone's out to get me?"

Dark opened his mouth as if to reply, but said nothing. After a tense moment, he stood up, forcing Riku to tilt her head upwards to maintain eye contact. Despite how close they were standing, he made no move to bridge the gap by touching her as he usually did. There was nothing sleepy or teasing about him now; his face was unreadable. "If you find it so hard to be around me, Riku, you can just say so. I'll go call Daisuke. He'll be here soon."

"Wait—" He started toward the door but Riku reached out and grabbed his arm, bringing him to a halt only because she used all of her weight. "Dark!"

The only sign of his displeasure was the fact that he wouldn't even turn to look at her. Was he annoyed? Angry? She didn't know what to say but knew she had to say something. "I don't like to think about how you're only here with me because you think I have problems," she finally admitted, choosing her words carefully. "It makes it seem… Dark, I don't know what's real and what's not. Did I see the person who killed Risa or am I just imagining things?" She took a breath. "Are you being kind to me because you want to or because you think you must?"

"Is that what you think I feel toward you? Kindness?"

He still wouldn't face her, but he sounded cold. She realized that her fingers must be digging painfully into his arm and released him. "I just don't know what to think. I don't know anything anymore. You made everything change by being here. I've _felt_ more while you've been with me than in all the days since Risa left me."

"I'm not here with you just because I think you have problems," Dark said slowly, when he turned around, enunciating every word.

"I know," she admitted in a small voice. "I'm just afraid. I don't know how to start living again after all this."

At her confession, he reached out to her and she let herself be drawn against him, her head tucked beneath his chin as his arms circled around her again. Her heart gave a little shudder when she heard and felt his soft exhalation. "Don't be. I know you, Riku. You were never afraid."

She wanted the laugh and cry at the same time. "But I always was. I just didn't let it control me."

"It's not just that. I also don't think you _have_ problems, Riku," he said above her, arms tightening around her a fraction. "There's nothing wrong with grief. Whatever anyone else said, it was only because they didn't understand you."

She shook her head in denial. "It's hard to tell sometimes, anyway. Honestly, I just don't fit in. I've forgotten what it's like to be normal."

He laughed at that, the vibrations in his chest passing onto her. "As if you ever were. You've been extraordinary since the first time I ever saw you." Somehow he made it sound sincere.

"So you just decided to kiss me?" she asked, but lightheartedly. She reluctantly moved out of his grasp and sat down again on the bed. After a moment, Dark sat down beside her. He didn't exactly try to touch her, but they were close enough that their shoulders and thighs brushed as they had when they had first woken up. There was a fragile balance between them that both wanted to keep.

Dark looked down uncomfortably at his clasped hands at her words and her smile widened. There was something about that incident that had affected him, but Riku had never noticed, always so focused on her own reaction to it. Instead of answering her question, he asked one of his own. "Did you honestly hate it that much? Your first kiss…"

"—was at least memorable," she finished for him, cutting him off before he did the unthinkable and actually apologized for it, as he seemed almost ready to do. "Better than the guys who practically slobber like puppies. Cute puppies, but… Well, I guess enthusiasm is supposed to make up for it."

"You've—" Dark stared at her, his mouth open.

Thinking over what she'd just said, Riku realized what it had sounded like. She had only had two other boys try to kiss her during her high school years, and she was just about to tell him that, when she bit the words back. It was positively fascinating how irritated Dark looked.

"It was high school," she explained instead. "Risa was the popular one, but she proved hard to impress so some boys decided that her identical twin was pretty enough." She hadn't meant for that last part to sound so cynical, but the truth was, a few had actually tried to date her just to be close to Risa.

"There must have been a lot of guys who wanted you, and just because you're you," Dark said rather unhappily.

His tone brought a smile to her lips; she simply couldn't help it. "It doesn't matter now anyway. We've all graduated. I guess I felt the same way toward them as you did toward Risa."

He raised an inquisitive eyebrow, although he seemed a little perturbed by the fact that Riku was comparing herself with him. "What do you mean?"

"They were good friends, but I just never felt… I don't know how to describe it. In the end, I guess they wanted me more than I wanted them. It was always like that," she said, thinking back and examining her own relationships with an objectivity that could have only been gained with time. "I guess I can't even blame you for breaking Risa's heart."

She'd said it without rancor, but Dark looked at her with a thoughtful expression. "Riku…how much did Risa tell you about me? About why I ended it with her?"

"Not much at all." Riku looked away guiltily. "I never wanted to hear it."

He seemed unsurprised. "Do you want to hear it now?"

She hesitated. "I'm not ready, Dark." As soon as Riku said it, she wished she could have taken the words back. They were honest, but they made her feel like a coward, as if she were still shutting Risa out even after her death. Miserable, she tried to explain. "I've been trying to pull myself together. Not to move on or to let go, because I know I can't. I'll always be missing half of myself, but I can't continue like this, right?"

Dark reached over to take her hand in his. "It's all right, Riku. I understand what it's like."

It so closely echoed what countless other people had kept saying to her that Riku almost snapped back, _no, you don't!_ She was trying to reassemble her life together, piece by piece. What did he know about it? But another thought stopped her from making any foolish remarks. What did she really know about him? She turned over their hands, realizing just how much of a mystery he still was.

Now that he was no longer a phantom thief, what exactly did he do? In the past few days, these normal topics of conversation had never come up, always secondary to the intense emotions that they stirred in each other. But now that her world had begun to make sense again, Riku could look outside of herself and wonder. Now that Dark was, for lack of a better word, more or less _human_, did he miss his old life?

She wanted to find out. In fact, she wanted so much from him. For the first time in so long, Riku wanted something from life. Nothing had happened and yet everything had changed.

"You came back because of Risa," Dark said, making it a question of whether she was here to stay or only visiting for the summer. It went unsaid that the potential between them was dangerous, volatile.

Riku had found an answer to that only recently herself. She had come back for Risa, it was true, and during the first few days, she had wanted to leave. She didn't think she could do it, walk through the town that she had shared with her twin, the absence so much stronger because every place held memories. But in a way, it felt as if Risa was alive here, every moment containing the possibility of running into her. Around the corner, behind a door, Risa's bright smile and sparkling eyes waited for her.

Her parents had encouraged her to come here after her first year of college. She had received excellent grades as usual, but aside from that, Riku had kept to herself the entire year, making very few friends. Her parents, with the suggestion of a counselor, had believed that the summer vacation would help her recover from Risa's death.

Riku had resisted at first, but in the end, her desire to see Daisuke had won out. Over the last few days, she had thought of the anxious questions and worried looks that awaited her if she returned to join her parents. Here, she had a kind of freedom; she could be herself. Here, she could remember the kind of life she had had before it had all turned into tragedy. She wasn't naïve enough to think that she would never see pitying or curious looks directed at her here, not when the story of Risa's death spread.

It was still different, though. This place offered her independence and a chance to remember what it meant to be alive. She had only planned to stay for the summer, but now she was here, she couldn't imagine leaving.

Dark was still waiting patiently for her reply. Once, his nonchalant attitude would have fooled her and convinced her that he didn't care, but she knew better now.

Riku took a deep breath. "I've been thinking the last few days about something, and now I'm sure this is what I want to do."

"What is it?"

She gave him a tentative smile. "If you come with me, you'll see. It shouldn't take long and then we can go eat."

* * *

The paperwork had only taken an hour to complete. Riku walked out of the university registrar's office with her new student status, a catalogue of the courses she could start taking in the fall, and the front desk lady's assurances that her student ID card would be waiting for her soon.

They actually had an excellent program here for what she was studying, which had not come as a surprise to Riku but was definitely a bonus. When Dark found out what that was, the expression on his face had been priceless. Since Riku had to complete the paperwork before the lady could leave for her break, they hadn't had time to talk about it, but she could see that Dark was dying to find out more.

Most importantly, for better or worse, she was here to stay. Neither of them needed to say it out loud for both of them to know what it meant. It was the first step to piecing her life back together. Nor was it lost on Dark that he was the one accompanying Riku, rather than Daisuke or anyone else.

It had been noon by the time they were finished, so Riku set off to their next destination by memory. To her relief, her favorite ramen shop still existed and in fact looked exactly as it had four years ago. The old shopkeeper recognized her and greeted her warmly, although he thankfully did not ask about Risa. He greeted Dark, too, with a wink.

"I haven't had a single problem since you helped me out, although I think my daughter is hoping that something will happen again so you'll come back! She'll be sorely disappointed to see that you already have such a beautiful young lady by your side." He grinned broadly at Dark and Riku, clearly thinking that they were on a date. "Tell me what you want and it'll be on the house. I've yet to thank you properly for everything you've done for us."

As Dark ordered, Riku tried hard not to wonder about the shopkeeper's daughter. She couldn't remember him having one before, actually, but it sounded like she was undoubtedly a member of Dark's fan club and probably one of his conquests. When the shopkeeper turned to her, Riku gave the man her most blinding smile and tried hard not to notice that Dark was looking around the shop as if searching for someone.

The shopkeeper looked positively charmed by the time she finished telling him what she wanted, and Riku turned back to Dark just as someone launched themselves at the phantom thief.

"Misa!" the shopkeeper scolded. "Leave Dark-san alone so he can enjoy his lunch with this lady!" The little girl with huge brown eyes just chortled and clambered onto Dark's lap, her hands fisting in his collared black shirt. She was probably around four years old.

The shopkeeper bustled away and Riku stared down at her hands in silent mortification, unable to believe she'd been so easily provoked to jealousy for no reason at all. Dark, oblivious to her shame, was playing with Misa after mysteriously producing some sort of puzzle game from his pocket. The child was adorable but she kept giving Riku strange looks and Riku was glad when the shopkeeper returned with their ramen and collected his daughter.

Supremely grateful that Dark hadn't noticed anything, Riku dug into her food, surprised that for the first time in months, she was actually starving. Dark must have been equally hungry because for the first few minutes, all they did was eat. Then, to Riku's surprise, they were interrupted by an electronic ringtone. Until Dark pulled out the thin, metallic blue object for the first time, she hadn't even realized that he had a cell phone. He looked down at the glowing display and sighed.

"Sorry Riku, I really have to take this." He stood up and made as if to leave, but Riku waved him down. She didn't mind if he stayed and talked in front of her. When Dark was done, they actually started talking, keeping to general subjects even though both wanted to hear about each others' lives. Instead, Dark talked about Daisuke and Riku told him a little more about her past suitors, since he was so interested.

For the first time, Riku's breath didn't hitch when Risa's name came up inevitably. She was too lost in her task of describing her memories to Dark, who listened as she talked about Christmas parties and Halloween costumes, French boys and American friends. Riku didn't exactly chatter, but she told Dark more than she had told anyone else and it was as if he just naturally pulled it out of her.

They had actually been keeping the peace, more or less, and it was shockingly easy. The kite flying by the sea and last night, rather than making things awkward, had given them a degree of familiarity with each other than made it possible for them to act like regular friends.

Well, friends that kissed and hugged each other, Riku amended, as Dark took another phone call and she reflected on exactly what they were doing. And, she couldn't help but add to the description, friends that quite possibly wanted to do more than that with each other. As much as she tried to deny the existence of such thoughts, she had wondered more than once what it would be like with Dark. He would be her first, just as he had been her first kiss. Better him than anyone else, at least.

Some small part of her also thought that even if Dark didn't _care_ about her that way, maybe it could be a good thing too. There would be fewer complications. Maybe even less risk, if she thought about a certain way. Had Risa ever thought that far into the future, back when they were still young and innocent? Riku remembered vaguely that she had expected Daisuke to be her first. But of course, she hadn't expected their relationship to end the way it had, without a fight, or even a word.

She just wondered whether similar thoughts had crossed Dark's mind and what he thought of her as, because "friend" just didn't seem to adequately cover it. The mere fact that she was sitting in a ramen shop having lunch with Dark Mousy and thinking of the future, along with his possible place in it, told her how much she'd changed since she had come back.

"So how did you decide what you wanted to study in college?" Dark asked her when he finished his second phone call, having decided that they were comfortable enough for him to ask the more personal questions that he really wanted to know. "I never would have imagined that you would have chosen architecture. It seems so unique."

Riku smiled, but before she could answer, Dark's cell went off again. He looked at her apologetically but chose to answer. Considering that this was the third phone call, Riku was starting to get slightly annoyed, especially after having had Dark's undivided attention. As she listened to Dark's soothing voice, however, she realized how absurd it was to begrudge him his own life when he had probably put it on hold for her for at least the last few days.

The fragments of conversation that she'd overheard really stirred her curiosity, although Dark hadn't offered any explanations for the last couple of calls. Judging by his exasperation, he was just as frustrated that their conversation kept being interrupted, so the calls were probably important.

"It sounds like you're involved in something dangerous," she said softly when he hung up. For a moment, Dark looked at her in surprise, but then started laughing.

"It's actually the opposite," he said. "Since you enrolled in the university, that makes you a fellow classmate, since both Daisuke and I are college students too. We started a company a year ago though, so we've both been swamped with work."

"A company? What kind of company?"

Dark smirked. "Well, I _am _the Phantom Thief Dark Mousy. What kind of company do you think?"

"You _steal_?" Riku wasn't sure whether she should be outraged or aghast. "But—"

She stopped abruptly when she saw Dark trying to hold back his laughter. He finally burst out with it and she rolled her eyes, realizing that she had been tricked. She waited for him to call down enough to answer her seriously.

"It's a firm for security consulting," he said with a lingering grin as she muttered under her breath to herself about deceptive bastards. "After all, who better to ask than a thief that can steal anything? Daisuke's grandfather helps out occasionally, too."

"So…you design locks and things like that?" she guessed uncertainly.

"Yeah," Dark confirmed. "We do locks, security clearance technologies, installations, recommendations for security plans, and so on. Plus, we do it for everything from corporate businesses to museums and hospitals. For the last year, we've been expanding too, so it's no longer local."

"Wow," Riku said, unable to think of anything else to say. There was this whole different aspect of Dark's life that she had not even known about, just like he hadn't known about her study of architecture. "So the shopkeeper here, when he said you helped him out…?"

Dark nodded. "I put in some locks for this shop. He had been having some trouble with thieves, even though the majority of his earnings was safely locked away. It was probably some young teenagers breaking into the shop till to get some extra spending money." He smiled rather arrogantly, but it made him frustratingly handsome. "Needless to say, they can't pick any of my locks."

"What do you and Daisuke study in college then?"

"Business, of course," he replied, and then his voice took on the teasing tone that Riku found she had almost gotten used to. "At least, Daisuke does. I go just for the pretty girls."

She smacked him lightly on the arm for that as the shopkeeper personally came to collect their dishes, daughter in tow. Misa glared at Riku, who was somewhat taken aback at the fierce expression on the child's normally sweet face. She reached up in silent demand for Dark and he obligingly picked her up and settled her in her lap. The look on his face above Misa's wide, round eyes told Riku that her expression was amusing to him.

Riku wasn't sure what to be more astonished by, the little girl's nearly scarily possessive attitude or Dark's apparently comfortable interaction with children. There was something really _cute _about the fact that he was playing with a toddler. After all, even the great phantom thief Dark Mousy couldn't quite maintain his image of coolness when Misa was literally drooling over him.

Riku tried really, really hard not to think about how she drooled over Dark in other ways.

Misa's father finally came to collect her again and the two of them thanked him and stood up to go. As Riku picked up the light windbreaker she had worn in the morning—it had been considerably colder then—Dark took it from her and draped it over his own arm. Before she had time to be surprised about that, she was even more shocked when his other arm lightly touched her back as if to guide her. The shopkeeper nodded approvingly as the two of them left that way.

They walked slowly toward the direction of Riku's home, neither in any particular hurry to get back. Dark was right beside her and their footsteps had fallen in sync with each other's without either of them trying. Contentment settled over Riku like a blanket and she had to resist the urge to lean into Dark's side. His arm had settled around her waist, loose enough that she could shrug it off if she didn't want it, but also just _there_ in a rather thrillingly intentional way.

"So, architecture?" Dark asked, picking up where they had left off.

Riku shrugged. "Believe it or not, I've always been interested. This whole city is full of beautiful architecture and in so many styles. I don't think you can find another town in Japan with so many Gothic buildings. I always wondered why."

"Hmm," he said. "Well, that has to do with the history of this place, and that actually has to do with the Hikari and Niwa families as well."

Riku waited for him to be more forthcoming, but when he wasn't, she sensed that he wasn't willing to talk about it right now. It was odd, though, to think that everything might be related back to the curse, or blessing, that had made Dark's existence part of the Niwa bloodline for three centuries.

"Actually," she mused, "our jobs aren't that different. It's important to take security into account when designing most buildings. For places like museums, which there are also more of in this town than in most places, it's crucial."

"Everyone just wants to be safe in the end," Dark said enigmatically.

Riku was secretly savoring Dark's touch and wondering whether it meant anything or if Dark did this with all the girls he escorted. They were both quiet for a while before Dark turned to her, catching her gaze with his violet eyes. They seemed more serious than usual.

"You're not the only one rebuilding your life, Riku," he said slowly. He seemed finally ready to elaborate on it.

"What did you mean when you said before that we're not as different as I think?" she asked hesitantly. Riku could see that he was still undecided about whether he should talk about it, but she wanted to know more than ever. Dark had so many mysteries and now that she had given up some of hers, she wished he would let her in. It was funny to think that he was actually the guarded one and even more cautious about his personal life than her.

She could see that he decided to trust her enough to tell her some of his secrets.

Unfortunately, it was also the moment that they were attacked.

* * *

A/N: I really hope some people are still reading this despite the horrendously long absence of updates, because I think I've started picking it up again. **Please review**!


	9. Revelations

**Dare You to Live**

By ElveNDestiNy

**- 9: Revelations -**

Riku had been so completely focused on Dark that she only caught a glimpse out of the corner of her eye and heard the squeal of tires before everything seemed to happen so fast. Suddenly a car with tinted windows had pulled up alongside the sidewalk curb, stopping so forcefully that she froze, another day and another scenario coming to mind—

But before she could get caught up in her flashbacks of Risa, the door nearest to her opened and a solid figure dressed all in black came out. Riku instinctively tried to stumble back but hands darted out to grab her. She didn't even have time to scream before she felt herself being torn away from Dark and pulled toward the waiting car.

"Riku!" Dark had caught hold of her too and for a moment Riku felt like she was going to be torn into two between them. She tried to kick at her attacker but only ended up losing her balance since both of her arms were being held.

It was probably what saved her. Neither the person nor Dark expected it when she stumbled and went down hard on her knees, suddenly becoming a dead weight in their grasp.

Pain tore through her shoulder as the man frantically wrenched at her arm, trying to get her up and moving again. Riku gritted her teeth and realized that the best thing she could do was continue to sit on the ground. The window of opportunity was closing now that the advantage of surprise was wearing off. She heard curses in a masculine voice and tried hard not to whimper even though it felt like her shoulder was about to be dislocated.

Seeing that she was not going anywhere at the moment, Dark let go of Riku and came around in front of her all at once, defense turning into aggression. His fist hit the black figure with a satisfying thud but before he had gotten more than a few punches in, the man had retreated into the getaway car. Dark tried to prevent him from going in, but something caught the light and the man slithered out of his grip.

Riku watched from the sidewalk as the standard dark-colored car zoomed off, dazedly noting that it didn't even have a license plate.

"Are you okay?"

Dark was crouched next to her, his face at her eye level, and Riku gathered herself enough to give a small nod. If she had tried to smile, she was pretty sure she would have started crying just out of sheer shock.

"W-what was that?" she asked shakily. "Why did he try…?" She didn't even know what to call what had just happened. One moment they were walking along a normal street and the next it was all chaos.

"Shh, we'll talk about it later. For now, let's just go home and get you cleaned up, all right?" Despite his calm words, Dark looked grimmer than she had ever seen him before and he was breathing hard, his eyes still a little wild. He basically looked pissed. She was just glad the look wasn't directed at her.

He helped her up and Riku looked around, realizing that the street was empty except for the two of them, so there were no witnesses. In fact, it all looked just as normal as it had been ten minutes ago and made her almost want to believe that she'd hallucinated it all. There was only the throbbing in her shoulder and around her forearms to tell her that it hadn't been imaginary.

"Can you walk?"

"I'm fine, Dark. I'm just more…shocked, I think, than anything else." Riku took a deep breath, her stomach doing a few flips from anxiety.

Dark didn't look convinced, but clearly he just wanted to get them back inside before anything else. "Okay, but tell me if anything hurts, Riku. I'll carry you."

Under ordinary circumstances, she might have bristled at the suggestion, but as it was, she didn't even comment. They weren't even that far from her house. Riku bit back a wince when they started walking, her knees scratched and bleeding from her sudden fall to the concrete pavement.

She didn't object when Dark's arm came around her back, his hand resting firmly on her hip. If he hadn't been so close before, she realized, she might be tied up in some dark room somewhere right now. Even the best reflexes couldn't necessarily save someone from being kidnapped. If she had been walking alone, she wouldn't have had a chance.

They were walking up the front steps of her lawn when she realized that she was faintly trembling. Well, it explained why Dark kept looking at her worriedly. "I'm all right," she said again. "Just some scrapes and bruises. Nothing a little first aid can't fix and I have a kit in the closet."

He escorted her into the kitchen, where she took a seat at the dinner table and began to clean her skinned knees, biting her lip against the sting of the disinfectant. Both kneecaps looked horrible and it was clear she wouldn't be wearing dresses that came above the knee anytime soon.

"I'm going to call Daisuke and Satoshi to tell them to come over," Dark told her when she waved off his help. As he had a quick conversation with Daisuke over the phone, Riku checked herself for any other injuries. She had a feeling that her shoulder was going to bother her for a very long time, but it thankfully didn't seem too seriously injured—she just had to keep her arm very still, because movement aggravated it and it really, really _hurt_.

It wasn't until she had finished up and was about to close the first aid kit that she saw the drop of blood on the polished golden wood of the table. Riku stared at it in puzzlement for a moment, unable to recall any injury she had that would have actually bled that much. It wasn't a smudge; it was clearly from an actual drop. Had she been cut without realizing it? Sometimes things didn't hurt until they were noticed.

Dark came back just then, the corners of his mouth decidedly showing his unhappiness. "I'm sorry, Riku. I wasn't paying attention as I should have." His gaze shifted away from her briefly. "I let down my guard and let you get hurt."

"What are you talking about?" Riku was still staring at the table and suddenly she remembered the flash of light she'd seen right before the man had gotten away. Dark would not have released him without a good reason. Her eyes darted to Dark's body and skimmed it quickly, her mouth dropping open when she found what she'd suspected. How had she even missed it to begin with?

He was actually _dripping blood_ and she hadn't even noticed. Riku's hand shot out and grabbed his, and then she was rolling up the sodden sleeve of his button-down black shirt. There was a four or five inch gash across his arm that was bleeding profusely.

"Oh my God, Dark." It looked serious and she was positive it would need stitches, a _lot_ of them, unless… "Can you still heal? You know, like before?"

Dark smiled wryly. "Don't worry, Riku. I don't heal as fast as I used to, but there are still some perks that come from being not completely human. The bastard pulled a knife on me and I was a little slow." His words seemed curiously flat.

She bit her lip. She could tell it was deep and despite Dark's nonchalance, Riku couldn't help remember that Risa should have been fine, too. _It had just been a small accident. She'll wake up and we'll laugh about it. Everything will be fine._

_Then the doctor telling her parents that Risa would never wake. Riku overhearing it all, seeing the truth of it in her father's eyes when he turned to her, before he even said anything. _

Dark saw her expression as these thoughts filled her mind. With a soundless shudder, Riku wrenched herself back to the present reality, shoving those memories to the back of her mind again, where they had been untouched since that day. Dark touched her non-injured shoulder lightly. "Hey. I'm serious. I'll be okay."

He probably could guess where her mind had gone in those few moments. "Still, you should at least clean and bandage it, right? What about stitches?"

"I'm more worried about you right now," he said, although she still led him to the kitchen sink and was pouring the disinfecting liquid over his arm. It had to hurt like hell, but he just gritted his teeth and waited it out before he continued. "There's someone out to get you and he's real, Riku. I don't think he was trying to hurt you outright. He was trying to kidnap you."

"But _why_?" Riku was still frantically working as they spoke. She unraveled the rolls of gauze and securely fastened it around Dark arm, where the bandaging looked absurdly inadequate, especially since the blood soaked through the first layers almost right away. It actually hurt her shoulder, but she was just glad her fingers weren't clumsy.

"That's what we have to figure out." Seeing that she was still fussing with the bandaging, Dark looked up to meet her eyes. "Don't worry about it Riku. Like I said, I'm not all that human." Was it just her, or did he almost sound slightly bitter?

Riku studied him briefly without him noticing. If she hadn't still somewhat been in a state of shock, her senses alternately heightened and numbed, she probably wouldn't have noticed anything to what he said. Dark's expression yielded nothing more to her scrutiny though, so she filed it away in her mind like so many other puzzle pieces of himself that he had given her. Since he was so against it, Riku finally stopped messing with the gauze bandaging. She just hated thinking that he'd gotten hurt because of her.

"I don't understand though. I'm not worth much, so why bother to kidnap me? I mean, I'm sure my parents would pay some sort of ransom if they asked for it, but even though we're pretty well off, there have to be better targets." She clasped her hands in her lap while Dark got up to make them both tea. When he came back and put a steaming cup in front of her, Riku was still lost in her thoughts. "Why go after me like that?"

Dark sat across from her, not so much drinking his tea as looking at it. "I'm sorry, Riku," he said again. "So much for being a security expert, right?"

She didn't like how that sounded, the way he looked like he was blaming himself. It caused a small spark of anger inside Riku, similar to what she had felt when she had accused him of killing Risa, and he hadn't even defended himself. In fact, he'd looked like he had believed it. She was starting to think that maybe Dark disliked himself sometimes, which went against every impression she had initially had of him—confident, arrogant, even somewhat careless in the way he approached life.

Riku couldn't help but think that the insights she was gaining unsettled her almost as much as the attack had. It was easier for her to keep a little distance between them when she thought of him in a certain way. She had been getting too close to him already anyway and just thinking about this made her feel strange.

"Stop apologizing, Dark." Her voice was sharper than she had meant for it to be, so Riku softened her words. "If you hadn't been there, who knows where I would be right now? I'm the one who's sorry for giving you such a hard time about protecting me. I just couldn't take it seriously because I never would have imagined there would actually be someone out there."

He looked at her, violet eyes oh-so-serious. "I didn't want to tell you this, but I think you should know. I think all of this may have something to do with Risa."

* * *

She heard the words clearly, yet for the first few minutes, it was as if they had not penetrated her mind. Riku's thoughts seem to spin around and around in her head, a hamster on an exercise wheel, no destination actually possible. It always came back to Risa, her twin's sudden and so unexpected death.

She felt the meaninglessness of it all envelop her again, until she almost screamed against it. _Why? _If Risa had died of some disease, she might have been able to accept it. If Risa had developed some rare cancer, or even if Risa had died in a normal car accident, some drunk driver or someone running a red light… But the way she really had died, it was so pathetic.

_Like you are pathetic, refusing to give up your grief for her… Selfish, really. Your tears don't comfort her. Your cries don't reach her ears. She's in peace, and yet she left you in complete turmoil… And you hate her for it, don't you? Just a little bit. _

Senseless, pointless, a car accident that wasn't even an actual accident, and then the person who had done it all just left, like a phantom that had simply entered her life, destroyed it, and then had flown away again. She couldn't remember his face, the same way that she hadn't even screamed when Risa went down—it hadn't looked so bad, almost as if her sister had just stumbled, but Risa's pretty dress had spread out over the dirty ground.

The horror hadn't been in that moment, it had come after, in realizing the significance of that moment. The last time Risa's eyes would look at the world. The last moment Risa had ever been awake. Her twin had died in that instant, but Riku hadn't realized it until much later…

Then, what she hadn't told Dark, hadn't even told Daisuke. What she couldn't talk about to any of the counselors and psychologists, even though they probably had all read about it in her file. She had tried to erase the memory from her mind altogether, but now it was back.

_The endless shrill whine of the machine, before the doctor finally, mercifully, reached out and turned it off completely. Because Risa hadn't died, not really—not at the scene of the accident, not even in the hospital. No, she was there and at the same time, she wasn't. _

The pain of her nails digging deep crescent moons into her palms finally jolted Riku out of the memories before they could progress further, to the next painful sequence, just before the last. Riku looked at Dark, numb fingers coming up automatically to wipe away the warm, salty liquid on her cheeks.

He looked like he wanted to ask what was wrong, but the answer was obvious, even if he didn't know exactly what memories had risen to overwhelm her. She shook her head in response to his mute question, finding it too difficult to talk about it. The look in his eyes told her that he hadn't given up yet, but was willing to put it off for now, given how much it clearly affected her.

Riku guessed that only a minute or so had passed, even though the vivid flashes of memory had made it seem like so much longer. Rather than worry Dark even more, she tried her best to concentrate on the current threat. The past was over and it could not be changed. But maybe, just maybe, she could make her own future, and she wanted the chance to do so.

"What do you mean when you say it has something to do with Risa?" she asked Dark. Riku was surprised to hear herself sounding almost normal and thanked the fact that she was still kind of numb from the sudden terror of the attempted kidnapping earlier.

"There's not much I can actually explain," Dark told her apologetically. "I know just about as much as you do. But the reason why Daisuke and I were so adamant that someone had to be with you at all times was because the night you thought you saw someone outside the house—there really was someone, and he was trying to get in."

"How do you know?" She didn't actually doubt him, not anymore, but she did want to know how he could be so certain.

Dark pulled out something and offered it to her, but when she didn't actually take it, he laid it down on the table beside their tea cups. Riku hesitantly reached out to pick it up and look at it, only to drop it back onto the table with a muffled _clink_ when she guessed what it was.

"Yes," Dark confirmed, reading her thoughts. "It's part of a set of lockpicks. They're old-fashioned but still effective. Thankfully you have a fairly modern lock and I installed and activated an electronic alarm system. I mean to tell you earlier, Riku, but I just didn't want to worry you for nothing."

"Then—what does this have to do with Risa?" Riku wrapped her cold hands around the tea cup and stared down as if she could divine answers from the liquid.

"Well, we're not sure yet, but it probably has something to do with her," he said. "You said yourself that there would be no reason to do something like this. It could be a stalker or something, but you haven't even been here long, so it's more likely that whoever it was followed you here."

She shook her head in denial and disbelief. "So he came here because…Risa died? I don't understand." Her thoughts suddenly took a leap to the most logical extreme and Riku gripped the tea cup so hard that fiery pains shot down her arm from her injured shoulder. "Do you—you think Risa was _murdered_? That it wasn't an accident?"

Maybe it had been a kidnapping gone wrong. But even as she said the words, Riku felt the sick twist in her stomach, because now that the memories couldn't be tamped down, she knew with a painful clarity that even if the driver had started the process of Risa's death, she and her parents, and the doctors, were the ones who had seen it through to the end.

Rather than denying it outright, Dark shrugged. "We really don't know, Riku. We're just guessing, given that everything else in your life seems fairly unremarkable, in the best sense possible. The only major thing that's happened is your twin's death. It seems unlikely that this means she was deliberately killed, though, given how you described it."

"Why would anyone possibly want to kill Risa? And how could the cab driver have been involved?" Once Riku started questioning, she couldn't stop the torrent of words that had built up around her fears and frustrations. "She shouldn't have died from the accident, except she hit her head just so… Everyone said so. _Everyone_. It was a tragedy, but just one of those freak accidents. They said it's like being bitten by a dog and dying from rabies. People aren't supposed to _die_ from things like that, not any more!"

She only stopped because the lump in her throat had made her swallow all her words. Over it all, a voice in her head whispered: _liar, liar_. She knew exactly how Risa had really died. She had been there.

_She'd fallen into a coma, the bleeding in her brain so bad that there'd been no hope. But her heart had still beat and the machines had breathed for her—until they had been turned off. Riku watched Risa take her last breath and then she heard the heart monitor sound its continuous alarm. _

_How many hours had it been after the accident when they finally killed her? _

"Riku, calm down," Dark shushed her, seeing how she had gone painfully rigid in her chair. His voice brought her back a little, pulling her slightly out of her trance, but she was only paying a little attention to him and he could see it was not enough. "It'll all be okay." He reached across the table to take her hand and she looked at him through blurred vision.

"Hey," he said a little more sharply, when she was still unresponsive. "It _will_ be okay." His hand came up to cup her jaw and he suddenly kissed her, passionately but not lustfully, more comforting than dominating.

Dark's lips were hot, warm, tender—his tongue tangling with hers gently, leaving behind a sense of spice that she could just barely taste, but could not identify, if it was even a flavor. More likely than not, it was simply Dark himself that tasted that way, completely unique and completely enthralling. She found herself responding to him, everything else suddenly rendered secondary as her pulse began pounding in her ears, her entire body warming from that intense, intimate contact.

His kiss pushed away the nightmares and memories, giving her another outlet for the emotions that churned inside of her. He offered himself up quite deliberately for distraction, even though most would not have given themselves over to be used in such a fashion. But he would, because it wasn't a matter of her using him, or him using her, not at all. He understood that.

His lips on hers and the sensations it produced grounded Riku back into her own very physical body—one that had gone both soft with heat and tight with want. Her hand came up to tangle in his hair, while she caught his bottom lip in her teeth for a fleeting moment, biting just hard enough for something primitive and wild inside her to sigh in possessive satisfaction.

Blinking away the tears rapidly, Riku took a deep breath and then tensed as the sound of loud knocking at the front door resounded through the house.

* * *

By the time Satoshi and Daisuke saw her, she was almost alright again. There was no real need for them to be coming over but it did make her feel better and Dark wanted to fill Daisuke in on all the details of what had happened. Satoshi also promised to put out a bulletin for a car matching the description they gave, although with such scanty concrete information to go on, none of them were putting their hopes in getting a tip.

She did not want to admit it, but their presence also helped as a slight buffer between Dark and herself. She was falling much, much too fast, and she had no idea if there was even a bottom that could be reached. Part of her felt more alive than she had ever felt, but her other, more rational side wanted to draw back in fear.

Riku thought the strength of whatever hovered in between them surprised Dark as well, despite his usual role in relationships (or so his image presented, and the gossip went) as the confident seducer. When he'd greeted Daisuke and Satoshi, his smile appeared the tiniest bit strained, as if he hadn't decided himself whether their presence had inconveniently interrupted something that might have progressed farther, or whether he was relieved that there was an excuse not to explore those possibilities quite yet. It was almost as if this was all kind of new to him too, although she could not begin to guess why that would be so.

After she had told Daisuke and Satoshi everything, exhaustion had caught up with her. She should have called her parents at least, given what had happened, but Riku just couldn't. She loved her parents and thought they loved her, but since losing her twin—and truthfully, long before that, too—she had become distant with them. She had always fought her own battles in any case and really, what could she tell them at this point?

_Hi Mom and Dad, I was attacked today and almost kidnapped, but my own personal angel—even though he has black wings and he's actually more of a thief—saved me, so I'm okay._

It was ridiculous to even think about it. But for some reason it made her realize just how alone she had become. Aside from Dark and Daisuke, she had no one. In school and with friends, Riku had never been very conscious of her natural popularity. She liked doing things for other people and was comfortable both by herself and in a group of people. What bothered her now was her realization that after the accident, she'd given up on her friends just as much as they had given up on her.

They were depressing thoughts and Riku did her best to push them away. At least she had been relieved to hear Daisuke's reassurances that Dark would be all right, although his explanation for it hadn't been what she had expected.

"He keeps telling me that it's not a big deal," she fretted, "but that kind of cut needs stitches. I didn't even know what I was doing when I was cleaning it. What if it gets infected?"

"He's survived way worse," Daisuke said with a laugh. "Honestly, Riku, that's practically a scratch compared to what he's been through. You know, Krad once even put his sword straight through him." Seeing that the new information wasn't doing much to make her feel better, Daisuke gave Dark an apologetic look, while Dark rolled his eyes at both of them.

Since they were all over already, they had dinner together and for once, the house didn't seem so big and empty, not when it was filled with three young men. Riku knew the others were constantly on the alert, so it wasn't a totally relaxed gathering, but it was nice to be together like they were normal teenagers just catching up with each other.

She told them about enrolling in the university and Daisuke was predictably delighted. Mostly, Riku just sat and listened, letting the conversation comfortably flow around her. Between Daisuke and Dark, she heard a lot more about their security company, and found out that it was actually also a benefit to Satoshi as well. Satoshi had grown into his role as the Police Commander and although his youth worked against him all too often, it was clear from Daisuke's stories that the older men he commanded respected him for his ability, if not for his experience.

It seemed that in the four years that Riku had been away, Satoshi had become a little more open to other people, a change that she felt sure could be traced back to Daisuke's influence. Satoshi even joked that Dark and Daisuke's company, Byakuya Securities, was putting him out of a job because crime rates were down due to better security. Daisuke responded by saying that since the police department's solve rate for cases were so high, it discouraged people from even trying to break the law.

Listening to the talk between the three young men, Riku felt like the threads of her life were starting to come together again, because suddenly she could see her future, and she could see theirs too. Nestled in the couch besides Dark, Riku watched a movie with them and found that it was surprisingly easy to not even be really concerned that there was still someone out there who wanted to hurt her. The worry could be saved for later. The memories didn't haunt her every breath. It was enough, for now.

She found her head leaning against Dark's shoulder and breathed in his warm scent. It still had the ability to make things liquefy low in her body, but overriding it all was a fragile sense of peace, of protection. He gave her security, even though playing with him, flying with him, kissing him, was dangerous in another way. In his presence, she could let herself be exhausted, aware again of her stinging knees, scraped raw by the concrete pavement. Dark's arm tightened around her as if he could sense the slight pain, but the strength of it, the sheer masculinity, made her feel more feminine than anyone else had ever made her felt. She had always been the tomboy, even after she had changed her appearance to become more ladylike, but somehow with him, she could be a normal girl.

They were silly thoughts, but special ones. Unaware of Daisuke and Satoshi's all too knowing looks at Dark, and of Dark glaring back at them as he stubbornly kept his arms around her and lent her his shoulder for use as a pillow, Riku began to doze off. Her heart felt so full with a kind of contentment that had been missing from her life ever since she had left.

The only thing that made it less than perfect was Risa's absence.

* * *

A/N: Please take a moment review before reading the next chapter!


	10. Resolve

**Dare You to Live**

By ElveNDestiNy

Dedication: To S and C, because we will always be sisters.

**- 10: Resolve -**

It had been an amateurish attack, Riku finally realized after she had time to rationally assess everything that had happened. The whole incident had been surprising partly because the plan to kidnap her seemed to have been completely botched. After all, why try to attack her in a neighborhood, where anyone could have become a witness for the whole thing? Why try when she clearly hadn't been alone? Why, especially, hadn't her attacker backed off when Dark had begun fighting back?

None of it added up. Even when Riku forced herself to consider the possibility that Risa's death was linked to all this, it still didn't make sense. Risa's death had to have been accidental—there was just no other way to explain it. No one could have predicted that her fall would just so happen to result in a severe brain injury, leading to her coma and ultimately her death.

So what was going on? Riku still had no clue and she was almost more frustrated than she was actually frightened. Riku was also going to be waiting for at least another half hour and she had little other than her thoughts to preoccupy her. It was enough to drive anyone crazy.

She was currently sitting at Dark's desk in his office, waiting for him to finish his meeting with a client. Since Dark had been reluctant to even let her out of her sight—she was alternately touched by his concern and irritated by his determination to be her perfect bodyguard—she had decided to accompany him to his workplace. She felt bad enough monopolizing his time without the added guilt of making him lose business because of it. They were lucky that it was summer and neither of them had classes yet.

Riku had woken up this morning feeling rested for once and without any memory of having had nightmares. She must have fallen asleep before the movie ended and Dark had probably brought her upstairs at some point. Though she had woken up alone, she was sure he had stayed the night with her again, since she could only believe that she was sleeping so well because of his presence.

Despite those intimacies, she was still a little hesitant to use Dark's personal things. His office hardly had any personal touches, but his desk was neatly organized and his computer was clearly top of the line. Still, he had actually given her his password, so Riku turned it on now, trying not to wonder how much someone who dealt with locks and security all the time had to trust her in order to offer her that information. Determined not to snoop through his files, she decided to do an Internet search for articles relating to her twin's death.

Though Risa's accident wasn't the kind of thing that usually made it into newspapers, the fact that it had been a fatal hit and run meant that for a while, at least, there had been a few mentions of it, mostly with pleas for witnesses to come forward. Her parents had also bought many ads offering monetary rewards for information. Some were even still active, though all the previous ones had resulted in unscrupulous people giving false accounts. All of that had only made it worse for Riku, since she _had_ actually been a witness—but she couldn't give a description of what she had seen. She couldn't even tell her parents clearly why their beloved daughter had died. She had failed Risa in so many ways.

Pushing those thoughts away, Riku reminded herself that the important thing now was to figure out the missing link between Risa's accident and the kidnapping attempt yesterday. On the fourth page of her search, something came up that had she had never seen before—an entire website dedicated to Harada Risa.

Her hands cold, Riku quickly clicked on the link, her stomach turning over as she tried to convince herself that one of Risa's friends or ex-boyfriends had decided to make an online memorial for her. The website looked to be fairly basic, though the front page had a picture of Risa. It was medium sized but had high resolution. She recognized it immediately as the one meant to be her twin's high school senior portrait. Risa beamed out at the photographer, lovely and eternally young, the image of her captured just a few months before the accident.

Normally the sight of that picture would have triggered a storm of feelings in Riku, but she was focused on something else now. "Who are you…?" she muttered to herself as she searched the page. There was nothing on who had made the website. If it had been someone who had actually known Risa, they would have left their name, or something, anything.

Riku clicked the links on the navigation frantically, opening up every section in a different browser tab. Aside from that generic photo, which had been used at Risa's funeral and in every article and ad, there were no further graphics. It was all text and most of it was copied from the sources Riku had just seen, a mishmash of the three or four sentence descriptions of her tragic death. Even though there was nothing too out of the ordinary, Riku felt her heart beginning to pound.

There was generic information about Risa's age, a few of her activities, and even quotes from her friends about how sweet she had been—but nothing about how those descriptions had been given in a plea for the hit and run driver to come forward, to give the Harada family closure.

And then in the last section of the navigation, titled "For Harada Risa," there was a personal blog. Riku's eyes flew over the dense chunks of text without really seeing anything but her sister's name repeated over and over, everywhere. Risa, Risa, Risa. It was like Riku couldn't read, or her mind couldn't process the words. It was a man writing all this, that was clear enough, but could Risa have attracted a stalker even after her death?

She scrolled up and forced herself to look again, even though the characters seemed to blur before her eyes. There were five blog entries displayed at a time and after skimming their contents, she realized that there was nothing about Risa having had a twin at all.

But the latest entry was all about the blogger having seen Risa's ghost—and his thoughts on the possibility that Harada Risa hadn't died at all.

* * *

"Thank you for meeting with me today, Tanaka-san," Dark said to museum director as they wrapped up the consultation. He was a little impatient as they exchanged all the proper things that needed to be said, since he wanted to get back to Riku.

Still, the meeting had gone very well and Dark could tell that his client was more than a little impressed by the full range of services Byakuya Securities could provide. The ironic part was that Tanaka-san was the director for Esuviiru Art Museum in the Tokyo Azumano District. It was the very same museum from which Dark had once stolen the _Saint's Tears_ artwork, back when Daisuke had transformed for the first time. Dark naturally had more than a few suggestions for how security could be improved at the museum, although to be fair, it wasn't like any place was truly off limits to the infamous phantom thief.

But after 300 years, Dark was finally more than a curse contained in the Niwa family's bloodline. Neither he nor Daisuke were dependent on "love genes" and the Niwa DNA anymore, and that had changed everything. While designing impenetrable security wasn't quite as exciting as breaking through security, the former required multiple attempts of the latter, after all. Besides, he technically had never given up his Kaitou Dark persona, though Daisuke had so far been mostly successful in convincing him not to steal anything.

There wasn't quite the same thrill anymore, anyway. Simply stealing things had never been exciting to him; it was all about outwitting everyone else. It was part of the reason why he always sent out the notices beforehand. Plus, he had to be nice to Creepy Bastard now because of Daisuke. Satoshi likewise seemed genuinely fond of him—well, now that the youthful police commander wasn't possessed by the spirit of a certain homicidal blonde angel.

Dark frowned at the thought of Krad, wondering not for the first time whether his counterpart was still suspended in existence, locked away in the Black Wings. He hadn't been lying when he had told Riku that he could understand what it felt like to have your other half suddenly go missing. Dark and Krad, the Niwa and the Hikari legacies…they were legends that endured beyond time and space.

Daisuke's grandfather had been the one to tell Daisuke that being a phantom thief wasn't all about stealing things. Sometimes it was about giving dreams to people who needed them, and Dark was determined to give those dreams back to Riku. She needed to remember just how precious life was, and who better to remind her than someone who'd always been nothing more than a phantom in name and in truth?

He was just about to open the door to his office when the doorknob turned of its own accord. Riku rushed through the open doorway so fast that she stepped on Dark's foot and crashed into him, nearly sending both of them to the floor. Automatically, Dark wrapped his arms around her, steadying both of them.

Her expression was so strange that he knew instantly that something was wrong. He tensed, eyes automatically scanning the empty office as well as the hallway, expecting to see a stranger. "What is it? What happened?"

"Dark, I think… I think he's after me," Riku blurted out, her face pale. "He said that she was the most beautiful girl he'd ever seen and he called her an angel—

"Riku, slow down—"

"—and I think he really believes it! He sounds psychotic enough. He thinks by meeting her, he can be absolved of his sins or something—"

"Riku!" Her whole body was trembling. Dark shook her once, hard, and it seemed to snap her back to her senses. She looked up at him and their eyes met. "Who are you talking about?"

"You have to see this," she told him, urgently pulling him into the office. She showed him the website, watching him anxiously as he absorbed the same information that she had. She looked more shaken up than she had right after the attack yesterday; Dark thought that it was probably because the reality of the danger she was in was just starting to all sink in.

"Risa can't be alive." Riku rushed to explain it all, almost choking on the admission. "Dark…I saw her die. I was there. The second time, I mean, not during the accident. Not when she really just…just _left_. I held her hand but she was already gone even before my parents decided to stop the machines."

Dark's arm came around Riku's thin shoulders, squeezing them in comfort as she let herself consciously remember those moments for the first time since it had happened. Tears glazed her eyes but Riku blinked them away, spine straightening as her mouth set in a grim line. Her grief had found a focus and was transmuting to anger. She watched as Dark went back to the picture of Risa on the front page.

"The length of your hair now matches hers, and you dress alike," Dark commented, keeping his tone even and calm as he tried not to upset Riku further. He didn't even notice he was still speaking as if Risa were still alive—it was too hard to deny the existence of such a vibrant girl when her picture was in front of him. Still, he and Riku had come to the same conclusions. "But he didn't see Risa's ghost."

"No, he didn't," Riku exclaimed. "He saw _me_. But he either didn't know that Risa had a twin or he's chosen to ignore any mention of it. I think he thinks I'm her, Dark. I don't know if Risa had a stalker before the accident—"

But Dark was shaking his head in negation. "It doesn't matter so much now where this guy came from," he pointed out. "Once we catch him, we have all the time to figure out what is going on in that sick head of his. What matters most right now is your safety."

With his reasoning, Riku seemed to deflate, the wild light leaving her eyes. "Then what can we do now?" she asked in a small voice.

Dark turned to face her, hoping that his expression wouldn't scare her. He could suppress his anger but he couldn't banish it, and every muscle in his body was tense at the thought that Riku was the object of this madman's fantasy. When she looked up at him instead like he was her savior, he couldn't resist leaning forward to drop a kiss on her forehead. "First of all, don't worry. I'm not going to let anything happen to you. It doesn't matter how much he wants you—I'll keep you safe, Riku."

She studied him with wide eyes that still shone with a sheen of tears. His declaration should have sounded silly, but it didn't. He wanted to smile to ease some of the tension, but something in her expression arrested him so that all he could do was return her gaze, willing her to keep fighting to live as she should.

"I believe you," she said, almost as if surprised by her own admission. "When you promise something like that…I shouldn't accept it just like that, but I really believe you, Dark. I trust you."

Her voice was sweet and husky to his ears. Dark caught his breath as her words sank into him and wrapped around his heart. He felt as though he had finally found his true sacred maiden, as though his endless and ever unfruitful search for love had finally, _finally_, led him to her. In all his years of existence, he had never felt like this, had never allowed himself to really feel like this… He had a chance now to love a girl as she deserved to be loved.

There was a warmth growing in his chest, threatening to simply burst out of him. The only question left was whether she could feel the same way for him.

* * *

Dark had asked Daisuke to dig up information on the name under which the website domain for Risa's online shrine had been registered. Satoshi was personally checking up on a report that had just come in about a stolen car that matched the description of the car that Riku's would be kidnapper had been driving. Kosuke had gone with Satoshi, though Dark had at first wanted to be the one to do so.

Even Emiko and Daiki, Daisuke's mother and grandfather, were helping with the situation by talking to Riku's parents to reassure them that Riku was as safe as she could possibly be, short of her being locked up in some impenetrable room. In any case, Riku wasn't going to leave Japan just because of the stalker—not when she was finally able to move forward with her life here.

With everyone else working on different aspects of the problem, that predictably left Riku with Dark—she was almost sure that had been the whole point of this Niwa conspiracy—and Dark had basically been hovering around her protectively the entire time. There really wasn't much that either of them could do, so in an attempt to get her mind off everything, Riku started organizing all her various supplies. She had haphazardly unpacked some of her things earlier, though what she had brought for what she'd thought would be her summer vacation was naturally only a fraction of everything she actually powned.

Organizing was a relative concept to an architecture student anyway. Even while she was busy putting things into the correct desk drawers, there were half-finished models everywhere, along with all kinds of pens, drafting pencils, paper, books, building materials, and more. It was a mess, but the clutter made the room feel like an actual home.

It took a good three hours for her to finish up, Dark occasionally helping when he could, seemingly fascinated by the various objects. He kept asking her what each thing was for and Riku found that it was pleasant telling him, given his obvious interest. It was still messy in the end, but it was down to a manageable level and she knew where everything was more or less located.

With her makeshift studio as professional as it was going to get, Riku became immersed in a project she had been working on for a competition. There wasn't much time left before the design had to be submitted. She'd planned on working on it over summer but in the last month, Riku had been so focused on everything else that she had lost interest in the project. Now, she rediscovered how exciting it was to use new software to design a 3D model.

It was some time before she even realized that Dark had stopped doing whatever he had been doing for himself and was instead almost as focused on her as she was on her work. He hadn't said anything, probably reluctant to break her concentration, but she could tell he was curious about what she was doing. Even though Riku was usually fiercely protective of her work—especially when it was only half-finished—she didn't mind his attention as much as she thought she would have.

"Want to look?" she offered tentatively, and was rewarded with a quick grin.

"I thought you'd never ask." He came up behind her and leaned over her shoulder. She showed him her work so far and then decided to take a break from working on the project, instead logging into her online portfolio and saving stuff for later examination. While they browsed the files, Riku started telling him about what it was like to study architecture, the endless projects, the pressure, the dreaded review, and the constant work. Yet despite it all, she loved it, too—love the challenge of it and loved the mixture of practicality and creativity that went into designing a building.

"This one was my most recent project and I worked with three other people on it for months," Riku explained as she showed him more blueprints, models, and things Dark didn't even recognize.

"Aren't you going to miss your friends?" he asked quietly as she continued to introduce him to the busy world of a student architect. "You work on projects in teams a lot of the time, don't you?"

Riku glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, a little puzzled over the point of the question. "Of course I'll miss them," she replied in a matter of fact way. "But I've decided to stay here and I think I need a fresh start more than anything else. Not to be too cliché, but sometimes the only way you can build a new building is to tear down the old one."

Dark nodded, his expression thoughtful. "So if you were in the School of Architecture, then what did Risa study?"

"Fashion," Riku told him automatically, used to explaining both what her and Risa's interests at the same time. "Well, fashion design. She picked it up when we lived in Paris and she really loved it, too. She had this natural ability to make the most gorgeous dresses…" Her voice trailed off as her eyes widened. "Does this have anything to do with—?"

"No," Dark answered hastily. "Not at all. I just wanted to know. That sounds like something that would have suited her well, though. She always had a charming style."

From the way Dark spoke about Risa, it sounded as if he had genuinely loved her. There was even a tinge of wistfulness to his words, as if he wished he could have seen the girl he had once been fond of grow up. Hearing that note in his voice, a swirl of complicated emotions seemed to get caught in Riku's chest and she almost asked him why.

Why had he given up Risa, breaking her heart? And why did he think Riku was good enough now for his affections, when it had been Risa who had captured his attention back when both twins had been here?

She was afraid to hear the answer, so Riku bit her lip and shrugged off her unease, reminding herself that she had other problems. It was kind of pathetic that she was using the thought of the stalker to distract herself from Dark, and Dark to distract herself from worrying over the stalker. But even if she couldn't bring herself to find out the truth about what had happened between Dark and her twin, there was still something she _could_ ask, something she knew she needed to ask.

"Dark…you wondered how much Risa told me about you, and I said she didn't tell me much because I was never willing to listen." The memory of it still stung sharply—there had been so many times when Riku had simply refused to hear what Risa wanted to tell her. In retrospect, these wasted opportunities might have saved Risa's life. Maybe if Riku had just listened, Risa wouldn't have held on so tightly to Dark's memories, wouldn't have carelessly stepped off the sidewalk, lost in the belief that Dark had finally come for her…

It was a familiar train of thought that would only lead her down in a spiral of guilt and grief, so Riku stopped herself. She found Dark watching her carefully, as if he were holding his breath for her next question. Pushing down on the nervous flutters in her stomach, Riku blindly forged ahead.

"She did tell me one thing. Risa told me you loved someone else..." This was the reason why she had shut her ears, and her heart, against her twin. She swallowed hard and her next words were very soft. "Someone named Rika."

Because she was looking directly at Dark, she saw a glimpse of haunted pain in his eyes at the name before his expression blanked, leaving only his handsome but completely composed face. Her heart was pounding so hard that it felt like it was going to explode. _I have no right to ask this. I have no right to bring up these memories for you— _She hated herself in that moment when she saw how his shoulders had hunched forward just the tiniest bit.

"Never mind," Riku blurted out before he could say anything. "I'm sorry I brought this up. It's none of my business." She could remember Risa's voice as if she were hearing it now: the exact way she had sounded the first and last time Riku had truly listened to anything about Dark.

_- __She was in love with Dark, and she was the only woman that Dark ever truly and deeply loved in return. Riku, you should have seen the look in his eyes… They couldn't be together, and it broke his heart, I just know it… - _

_- Do you really believe that, Risa? - _

Even then, she hadn't wanted to acknowledge the possibility that Dark had loved anyone like that, regardless of who it had been. Even then, Riku had struggled to deny her own confused feelings of annoyance and jealousy. She wanted to continue seeing Dark as a no good pervert and criminal. It was Daisuke that she liked, whether or not his letters would ever come. Riku had had a real relationship with Daisuke and apparently even that hadn't mattered much, so why did Risa have to be just so fixated on the phantom thief who had never even cared for her?

"She was your grandmother, for whom you were both named."

Dark's voice jolted Riku back to the present and she looked at him, shocked that he was actually responding to the questions she couldn't help but bring up. He had turned away from her and he was speaking in a calm, even tone that told her nothing about what he was feeling.

"Dark, you don't need to tell me anything…" she rushed to say. It was her own insecurities that made her bring this up.

But he continued, almost relentlessly. "I did love her, and because of that, I hurt her. All that my love could do was cause her more grief in the end. I swore I would never hurt anyone like that again."

Riku parted her lips but said nothing. A hundred questions flooded her mind, none of which she could voice or even define. She didn't know why she was pursuing this or what she hoped to gain from it. It hurt a little to see Dark's love for her own grandmother, who she had never even met, but at the same time the feeling that overrode all others was a kind of wish—that Dark would never have to look as he did now again. Like his heart was reflected in his eyes and like it was breaking all over again.

She understood what Risa had meant now, all too perfectly. How could she be jealous of Rika or begrudge Dark his memories of someone he had loved so much? She had expected to doubt Dark's present feelings toward her or to wonder whether Dark has simply been searching for a lookalike all these years. But oddly enough, none of those concerns truly touched her. Somehow, knowing that he had loved someone else so purely just made her own heart soften toward him more.

Though he was still standing near her, he was turned away slightly so that his face was almost in profile. For once, she felt as if she understood him, rather than the other way around. It was a strange realization—that she owed him so much, she just wanted to give him everything, to somehow comfort him as he had comforted her when she had needed it.

"I'm not the only one rebuilding my life, am I," she said softly, a statement rather than a question. She was echoing his words back to him, continuing the conversation that had been interrupted by the kidnapping attempt.

She stood before him, close enough that she could hear him breath. Without even realizing it, Riku's arms closed around Dark in a tight embrace. She inhaled his unique scent as she felt him relax against her, the muscles beneath his thin shirt that were once rock-hard with tension now still solid against her but no longer painfully so. Just being pressed against him made her heart do an irregular pattern of triplet beats.

Desire and perhaps something more flared between them, charging the air until it was heavy and heated. His lips brushed the side of her neck, sending shivers down her spine. She _wanted_. She had forgotten what it meant to want, or had never really known in the first place, but now her breath caught in her throat. The strands of his hair was silky against her skin and he seemed so wild, so impossible to hold. The feeling of walking along a knife's edge was addictive.

"Riku," he said, voice uneven.

It was a moment of such lucidity and vitality again, like when Dark had taken her out to the sea. She was a doll coming to life after being kissed by magic. She closed her eyes, and it was then that she decided to be his.

* * *

"He must still be in the city," Satoshi told them over dinner that night. "We checked out the stolen car that was found and it's almost certainly the one that Dark and Riku saw that day."

He and Riku had been invited over to eat with the Niwas and it had turned out to be the perfect opportunity for them all to compare notes. With so many people together, even the necessary debriefings about what they had all turned up during the day didn't seem so sinister. Dinner was coming to a close, so it was almost a relief to get to the business that was on everybody's mind.

"Unfortunately, we still don't have a single description of the person," Kosuke added. "The car owner didn't even know it was gone yet and he was smart to abandon the car as soon as you guys had seen a glimpse of it."

Dark sighed at the news but it was what he had expected. "Do we at least have a name so we can stop calling him 'that person'?"

"Well, possibly," Daisuke spoke up. He looked at Riku, who was seated across from him, with Dark to her right. "Does the name Fukuda Kohei mean anything to you?"

Riku didn't know what she had expected, but hearing the name didn't even send a shiver down her spine. Somehow that made it all the worse, in the same way she had tormented herself at one point with the thought that she could, on any day, walk past the cab driver who had hit Risa and never even know it.

Reading her blank expression correctly, Daisuke shrugged too casually. "That was the name that came up for the website, but I haven't found any other records for it. It could be a completely fake name, or he may really just be your average pathetic person."

"Fukuda's not an average stalker if he's going around trying to kidnap girls," Satoshi pointed out rationally, earning himself an annoyed glare from Dark.

"My!" Emiko exclaimed as she re-entered the room then, carrying a plate full of cakes for dessert. Towa-chan started helping her pass them out, eager to help. "Why is everyone so gloomy? Dark won't let anything happen to Riku!"

"That's right," Dark and Daisuke both affirmed at once. The unexpected synchronization prompted a few laughs that broke the tension that had been rising at the table.

"I'll stay with Riku again tonight," Dark told everyone, then belatedly turned to her. "That is, if you're okay with that?"

She bit back a laugh, eyes bright with a teasing challenge. "Honestly, could I say anything to change your mind anyway?"

"No," he replied bluntly and unapologetically. This time she did laugh, as did a few others.

"Why don't you stay here with us, Riku-chan?" suggested Kosuke. "He won't dare come here, and even if he did, he'd never make it past the booby traps."

Emiko not so subtly stomped on her husband's foot, all the while smiling adoringly at Riku. "Never mind that. I'm sure Riku-chan will be much happier with Dark!"

Towa-chan giggled, Daiki gave Dark a knowing wink, and Daisuke turned as red as his hair, but Riku hardly even noticed any of that. All her attention was on Dark, who simply smiled a mysterious smile.

* * *

It was nearly ten by the time Riku and Dark left the Niwas with many goodbyes and almost ten thirty by the time they returned to the Harada house. Rather than feeling tired, Riku felt energized by the cheer that had been generated from being in the midst of so many warm, lively people. She missed her own parents of course, but dinners with her family since Risa's death had mostly been silent, individually miserable affairs.

"They all think we're together," she mused as she got out her pajamas from her dresser. Dark was lying on his stomach on her bed, thumbing through a book she had loaned him. It was one of her favorites and featured pages of gothic cathedrals.

He looked up at her statement. "Are you bothered by that?"

She shrugged. "I actually thought it might bother _you_, to be honest."

"Why would you think that?" he asked in surprise. "I don't mind at all, Riku." He rolled over so that he could see her without twisting his neck. His words might have been nonchalant, but she thought she heard a hint of actual pleasure beneath the understatement that surprised and warmed her.

"I've imposed on you a lot. I've always been horrible to you but you've always helped me." Riku fumbled with her clothes uncomfortably, well aware that Dark was watching her every movement and expression. "Anyway, I'm going to shower—and if you're ready to shower and sleep too, there's the other bathroom…"

Suddenly blushing hard, Riku quickly shut the door behind her, knowing that Dark must be either confused or amused by her abruptness. She was willing to bet it was the latter. She was guessing that he would want to stay with her, assuming that he would sleep beside her, and hoping—she could barely admit this to herself—hoping that he would want her the way she wanted him.

When she finally emerged again, muscles all relaxed from a hot bath but butterflies in her stomach, he was already in her bed, hair damp from his own, quicker shower. But this time, he wasn't pretending to be asleep. He was dressed in a sleeveless black cotton shirt and he'd been reading her book again, but set it aside as soon as she came out, not even pretending further interest.

The sight of him watching her almost made her stop in her tracks. It wasn't _chaste_, what was between them, not anymore. Had it ever really been? She knew it with every shallow breath she took, knew it with the way his gaze skimmed over her, molten and lethal, as if the plain and thin T-shirt she wore, which modestly came down to midthigh, and the soft cotton boyshorts she had beneath were some sort of exotic lingerie.

Still, neither of them said anything as she crossed the room and pulled back the corner of the covers so that she could sit and slide her legs under. The sheets were cool—Dark had clearly stayed on his side of the bed—and she shivered at the sensation of smooth cloth against her lotion-silkened bare skin.

Misinterpreting her shiver, Dark asked, "Are you cold?"

She shook her head silently in negation and he raised an eyebrow, daring her to admit what else could induce such a reaction. Glancing at Dark out of the corner of her eye, Riku reached for the switch that controlled the lamp on the nightstand and flicked it off. She turned back only to find Dark a lot closer that she had expected. There was enough moonlight from the French windows that she could still see him, even with shadowed features. Before she could do or say anything, he slid his arm around her, drawing her against the side of his body. Heat bloomed between them as her softer curves melded alongside him from shoulder to knee.

It was Riku who turned her head and pressed her lips to his, eager to feed the exquisite sensations coursing through her body. Energy coiled between them, generated from desire and need. His surprise at her initiative lasted only a moment and then he parted his lips and let her tongue slip into his mouth as she let his do the same. He buried his hand in her hair, tangling his fingers in the strands as he tilted her head and let their mouths slide together in a joining that was as sweet as it was hot. Her hand caressed the side of his neck as they lost themselves in each other.

When they finally moved apart, breathless, it was only because Riku wanted to be closer. She ran the tip of her tongue gently across her lower lip; it seemed slightly swollen with the intensity of their kiss. Dark made some muffled sound at the sight and she pulled him half on top of her, reveling in all the ways she could give herself to him. She found a secret pleasure in the sheer solidity of his weight and in the race of his pulse in the hollow of his throat. Her whole self felt like one giant, single cell of want—she had never felt more alive or more primal.

There was no longer even the slightest hint of sadness in his eyes and the realization came to her in a sudden moment of clarity: this, then, was the power of her own willingness… Being one of Dark's lovers could transform her, could make her into a normal girl somehow, without the imbalance of feelings between them that she sometimes felt so keenly.

He wanted her—everything she saw and felt confirmed that one fact, that one thing that seemed to change her world as she knew it. It was intoxicating, surrendering her body to his desire. He looked down at her and exhaled slowly while she wondered what he saw, what he read in her eyes. She wanted to be possessed; it seemed to give her life more meaning than anything else. She wanted to know she could never be simply a replacement for anyone else.

She shrugged out of her thin T-shirt, always having expected to be self-conscious when this kind of moment came, but somehow she was not. He could not know how loving and impossibly tender his expression was then. He slowly kissed his way back down her neck…then her collarbone… In between her breasts…

"I want to be yours," she told him breathlessly. She rested her hand on his shoulder and then slid it around his neck, his skin hot beneath her fingertips. "Dark…"

He stilled, hovering above her, braced on his arms. He was still fully clothed, though the sleeveless shirt he wore exposed most of his collarbones and shoulders. She ghosted her hand up his back, beneath his shirt, fascinated by how his skin everywhere seemed impossibly flawless and warm.

"Riku," he said, but he sounded all wrong, as if he were warning her against his own wishes. His eyes were nearly black in the darkness, but the look in them…

It took a few moments for understanding to sink in. Riku stilled. Her hands curled into fists by her sides and the wave of embarrassment she thought she hadn't felt flooded up her neck and cheeks. It was as if all of this was happening to someone else, but at the same time, she was looking straight into Dark's eyes. The initial moment of surprise turned into rejection, heavy and incomprehensible.

He seemed to read it all in her face. "Riku," Dark groaned, closing his eyes in defeat. Even as her arms came up to cross against her chest defensively, he crushed her against him, rolling onto his side so that she wouldn't bear his full weight. "It's not like that. You're torturing me, you know that, right?"

She hugged him back partly so that he would no longer see her face and partly because, despite everything, she still needed him. "Then why…?"

He let her rest her head against his shoulder and it was close enough to his heart that she could hear it beating furiously. "Riku, what do you feel for me?"

"I—" Riku started, but despite all the responses that immediately came to mind, she stopped, unsure of what to say. Gratitude, certainly, because he had saved her from so much, but she knew that wasn't what he was looking for. Friendship, trust, comfort, desire—all of those things too, and she had always had a bit of a crush on him, like seemingly every other girl, even if she would have been the last to admit it. But those weren't what Dark was looking for either.

She liked him, of course. Enough that she felt a little crazy with it, enough that she wanted to be his. But did she want him to be hers? Did she dare to love him?

She looked up at him blindly, lost in the emotions spinning out of control within her, and he rested his forehead against hers. "I don't know," she confessed finally, and with her own words, she started to understand.

There was no such hesitation for him, no doubt in the arms that held her. He knew exactly what he wanted, what he had been waiting for all along, through the years. She wanted to be his, but was she ready to make him hers? She might have been ready to throw herself off a cliff but he was only trying to protect both of them. Without even a word from him, she knew that this was a special moment for Dark, too—and _that_ thought was enough to lead her to yet another realization.

"You…" Dark had never been able to truly love anyone, but surely that didn't mean he hadn't…made love to anyone? Her eyes widened in surprise, but the slight chagrin in Dark's voice confirmed it.

"Yes, Riku. It's only you."

Every preconceived notion of Dark the playboy just shattered in her head with those words. Riku wasn't sure whether the laugh or cry, but she struggled to restrain herself, as she was sure Dark wouldn't appreciate either response. "But you loved Rika, and when you flirted with Risa, you were always so confident," she found herself saying inanely, almost wishing she could see his expression.

Dark sighed into her hair, but she felt, rather than heard, his low laugh vibrate through his chest. "I've never given all of myself to anyone, Riku. How could I, when I would only hurt them in the end? Being a phantom thief… I wasn't only a phantom to them, I was a phantom in my own existence. I would never want to cause anyone that pain."

She thought of what that meant and how many lonely years that could have been. She remembered his brash arrogance and the way he would flirt, casual and intimate at the same time—a wish to love that could neither be suppressed, nor fulfilled. "Was that why you stopped seeing Risa?"

Beneath her cheek, his heart didn't race for her twin. Riku felt Dark's arms hold her just a little tighter momentarily and when he looked at her, she knew he was seeing _her_, not anyone else, past or present. "I left Risa because I was afraid that the longer I made her happy, the more devastated she would be later. One day, she would have eventually met someone that would make her forget all about me."

It was what happened with her grandmother, Riku guessed. Sixteen, seventeen—these were the teenage years of first love, as intense as a bolt of lightning and with the same kind of impact. But still, no one expected those tender feelings to last forever, any more than Daisuke's had lasted for hers, or hers had for him.

She kissed Dark, putting an end to the questions, and this time, she discovered that there was another flavor to their sweet intimacies that she had never noticed before. He would give her everything he had to offer, but would she do the same? The passion between them was just as potent as before—she was mostly naked, and he wasn't about to ever object—but now it was tempered by the frustration of knowing that he would give her time to really understand what it was she wanted.

She wanted him, but the price—Dark's price—was her heart. The organ that ached so much now that she could barely breathe, and yet she was afraid of this feeling, too. Even as it strengthened her, it made her vulnerable in other ways. There could be no assurance that this would not fall apart somehow, no guarantee against the same kind of soul-wrenching pain she had gone through when her twin had left her to face the world alone.

Riku touched the curve of Dark's jaw, wishing it were easier for her to let him in.

"Do you want me to go?" Dark asked. She could see that he would, if she just said so.

It wasn't what he wanted, but it was like him to ask anyway, she realized.

She shook her head, knowing that although she had yet to find the courage she needed to label this feeling, it was already within her. "Stay with me."

* * *

A/N:** Please review**!


	11. Reaction

**Dare You to Live**

By ElveNDestiNy

March 3, 2011

A/N: Sorry for the long wait again. This got pushed to the back burner since I've been churning out these 15 page/10k word chapters for my LOTR story. Over the holidays, I got a chance to sit down with one of my best friends and I plotted out this story to the end with her. My apologies in advance for the typos, since I haven't had time to properly proofread.

**- 11: Reaction -**

She never would have expected things to turn out this way. Riku wasn't the kind of girl to be particularly caught up in relationships and drama. Despite being 19 years old, she could honestly say that she'd never put that much time or thought into how she'd fall in love. Risa probably could have gone on for days describing every possible scenario, but Riku? She hadn't ever been the kind of girl who made searching for love a top priority.

It had always been a "someday" kind of vague idea in her mind: someday, she would meet someone special—or at least special enough that she would not regret losing her virginity to him. After all, Riku was a realist. In this day and age, she didn't believe that sex had to only come with marriage or even with some kind of grand passion—some decent combination of commitment, attraction, and affection were what she really hoped for, on the rare occasions that she thought about it.

Love, well, that was a someday thing, too. Someday, like what most people eventually ended up doing, she would fall in love and marry, then perhaps have some children.

Risa had always scoffed at her twin's mundane expectations. Risa, without a doubt, would consider Dark's restraint to be wonderfully romantic right now. After all, who would have expected a player to be such a gentleman? Except it turned out that Dark really wasn't much in the business of playing with hearts after all, and he _was_ deadly serious about Riku's feelings toward him. Even though she knew, she absolutely _knew _that he was finding it hard to resist taking what she'd so clearly—mortifyingly, really—offered, he had more self-control than Riku had expected.

In fact, he had more self-control than she did, and that was incredibly frustrating on more than one level. Some part of her appreciated that Dark was waiting for her to get things sorted out in her head and to be really sure of what she felt. The rest of her asked who she was kidding, because she knew what she felt—she was just afraid to let herself feel it.

At least she could thoroughly test that control. The devilish part of her pointed out that after all, it wasn't really as if Dark had said that he wouldn't be amenable to a change of mind.

She normally wouldn't have been so bold, but Riku discovered that after a certain point, she just _wanted_ what she wanted. It was a kind of intimacy all on its own, to have her desires focused so strongly on one person, and on a person whom she already knew wanted her back. Maybe that was why she'd never lost her mind so much over anyone else—Riku had attracted a fair amount of interest, but she'd never felt like this toward any of those men.

Somehow, her body's absolute acceptance of such desire made it easier for her to realize why she was mentally and emotionally balanced on a precipice. She was resisting because she knew that if she fell and there was no one to catch her, it was a long way down.

She had barely wanted to live after her twin's death, and that loss still haunted her. If Dark left her, Riku couldn't even imagine what would be left of her life.

It was a long, long night.

* * *

Having been one half of a set of twins, Riku had heard all sorts of expression before about being each other's shadows or being "joined at the hip." Dark, she discovered, took that phrase to a whole new level.

"I'm going to go crazy at this rate," Riku declared to Daisuke the next afternoon.

Daisuke winced. "We just want to keep you safe, Riku." The red-haired teen obviously thought her sentiment came from her feeling of being "locked up" in the equivalent of protective custody. Riku didn't correct the impression.

"You must be pretty sick of Dark's company, right?" Satoshi added sympathetically, causing her to look at him with surprise. Satoshi rarely offered his opinions, but she saw a slight smile curve his lips and she realized he was just needling Dark.

Because Dark was there with them, of course, since they had all somehow decided that since it turned out she _did _need a bodyguard, there was no one better for the job. It wasn't as though Riku actually disagreed, but every time his skin brushed against hers, she couldn't suppress the shiver that ran from the nape of her neck all the way down her spine.

Even now, his eyes were on her, and even though she knew that to Daisuke and Satoshi everything seemed normal, she still felt as though she could melt under the heat and heaviness of that gaze. Apparently, there was no easy OFF switch for lustful fantasies. She remembered asking him, _what's going to protect me from you?_

What was worse was that if he was similarly distracted, he didn't show it. Dark was professional from head to toe, less protective boyfriend and more security detail for a celebrity. Except she wasn't a celebrity, and if he made any joke about guarding her body, she was sure she'd spontaneously combust on the spot from embarrassment.

Dark just rolled his eyes at Satoshi's comment, blissfully oblivious to Riku's inner thoughts. "You can do whatever you want and go wherever you want," he reminded her, apparently thinking along the same lines that Daisuke had. "I'll just be with you."

"It's not the same," she mumbled, feeling herself flush hotly. "Just having you hover over me reminds me that I'm supposed to be in danger."

Daisuke might not have noticed it yet, but little escaped Satoshi's observant eyes. After the nights they'd spent sleeping in the same bed, there were inevitably all sorts of little gestures and touches that came naturally to both herself and Dark. What was between them was like a bomb waiting to explode and Dark had already lit the fuse.

The four of them pored over the blog entries written by Risa's stalker for clues to his identity and what he really wanted. There was very little for them to work with and reading the insane, rambling rants just made Riku feel like she was caught in a cat and mouse game, where she was most definitely the mouse. They checked the video cameras that Dark had installed around the house, but the footage showed nothing out of the ordinary.

Satoshi and Daisuke eventually left around dinnertime and Riku found herself alone with Dark once again. He remained as cool and casual as ever, but she could see through the façade enough to realize that while all of that brashness and playfulness really was part of his personality, it was hardly all there was to him.

She only needed to say a few words—the words that he was waiting to hear, of course. But somehow, Riku was unable to get them out. Every single time she thought about starting up that inevitable private conversation with him, her heart quailed and she lost her nerve.

Because when she finally held off her body's demands and stopped listening only to the rapid beat of her heart, her mind took over and she was filled with questions and doubts. Was this really a good idea?

Part of Riku reasoned that she wasn't Dark's first choice, or even second, or even third. He'd been unable to love, unable to give himself fully to any girl because of his phantom existence. But by his own words, Dark had really, truly fallen in love with each girl—enough to let her go for the sake of her happiness, even at the sacrifice of his own.

Risa had seen the expression in Dark's eyes when Dark told her about their grandmother, Rika. Riku had another experience to add to that: seeing Dark's expression when speaking of why he had broken up with Risa.

And if Risa were still here, still alive, would Dark give Riku a second look?

Riku was just the lucky beneficiary, the one who won the prize for being Caller 100. Rika, Risa, Riku. She was just the last incarnation of the girl who Dark couldn't ever have, the phantom love that the phantom thief had chased over 300 years. Even knowing that her grandmother, her twin, and herself all had vastly different personalities, Riku couldn't help but wonder, too, how much their similar appearances had to do with Dark's interest. No wonder he looked at Riku like she was special—because this time, Dark could really get the girl.

Even if all that didn't matter, Riku felt guilt press down hard on her heart. Risa had always claimed Dark as hers and she had even paid the ultimate price for her devotion. How could Riku ever forget that _everything_ Dark was giving her—his love, his commitment, his future—had been Risa's greatest dream?

* * *

The fuse was burning up with every hour that passed, but when the explosion came, it was still somehow a surprise.

Riku had stepped into Risa's old room and because she'd adamantly insisted, Dark had left her in relative solitude. He was roaming outside, checking the perimeter of house. She wasn't sure what she'd been trying to find here, except she'd vaguely hoped that here in this room filled with the memory of her twin, she could figure out the jumble of thoughts in her head.

She sat on Risa's bed and stared at the furniture around her, once again struck by the profound loneliness of life without her vivacious twin.

The phone rang and Riku nearly jumped off the bed—apparently no one had ever removed the phone from the nightstand next to the bed. Laughing at her own nervousness, she reached to pick it up. "Hello?"

"Hello. Is Niwa Dark there?"

It surprised her for a moment to hear someone call Dark by that name, although he'd told her before that he existed legally as Daisuke's brother. "No, I'm sorry, he's not available right now."

"I was told that he could be reached at this number," the man said irritably. "I have a proposition for him."

"Well, I can take a message for him and he'll call you back soon," Riku said automatically, opening the drawers on Risa's nightstand in hopes of finding pen and paper. It was probably some kind of important business thing—maybe this was a big corporate client. She finally found some lined pieces of paper already covered with writing.

"I'll try again later," the caller said, and then abruptly hung up on her.

Riku resisted the urge to curse at his rudeness and returned the phone to its holder with a hard click. She was about to go find Dark when she looked curiously down at the paper that she'd found.

It was definitely covered in Risa's handwriting, the bubbly, girly script that her twin had favored during middle school. There were four pages of pale pink paper, lined with darker pink, and the pen's ink was blue. The paper looked as though it had been ripped out of a notebook and forgotten in the back of the bottom drawer.

Looking at the date cutely scrawled across the top, Riku realized that this was from just before the Haradas had moved away. It probably came from Risa's diary, judging from the first few lines. What really caught her interest, though, was Risa's predictable turn to the topic of Dark only one paragraph down.

Even though Riku felt a twinge of guilt, she couldn't stop reading. There were so many things that her twin wrote that made her smile. Risa's personality practically jumped out from the page—true, this was her younger self, but she always had that almost-airhead kind of bubbliness, even though as her twin, Riku knew how Risa was also determined, loyal, and sometimes surprisingly intuitive.

She missed her twin so much more now. Reading this was almost like hearing Risa chatter away again. There were three long and excited paragraphs all on Dark's latest theft, covering the whole front page.

Riku was still smiling from Risa's dreamy description of Dark's eyes when turned the paper over and her heart almost stopped.

_Anyway, __I think Riku might actually like Dark! :O No, really. I mean it. She always calls him names and says he's a pervert (he is soooo not) and loser (again, sooo NOT) and things like that, but she also blushes sometimes when someone mentions him. Once, I even caught her listening to the news about him! She turned off the TV and started ranting about how he was a no-good thief, but when I said that Dark is so cool for being able to evade all the security guards and police, she agreed. (As if any normal person would disagree, but Riku _never_ says anything good about Dark. Ever.)_

_So, what makes me so sure? __I mean, I know she's with Daisuke and they make such a cute couple really, but she __definitely__ would be interested in Dark otherwise. I just know it. Maybe it's because she's my twin—like when I knew she was jealous and worried that Daisuke liked me first -_-_

_But anyway, I liked Dark first and he's totally mine. It sucks that we look alike because then if he thinks I'm pretty, that means he thinks she's pretty too! But I can't help but worry about things like that when I imagine them because Riku's always so popular and brave ^^; even if she dresses like a boy. I hope she never tries to steal Dark from me because I would never forgive her… :( _

The writing ended there on the page, with four blank lines at the bottom. Riku stared at them until they swam before her eyes and a hot tear fell onto the paper. The ink began to run and Riku frantically patted the paper dry even as she started to cry harder.

Risa had guessed. She'd suspected all along, somehow, even though Riku hadn't even understood her own feelings and had been repressing them. Risa's insecurity came through so clearly here, in her own voice, and it was because she'd known.

Was that why, on the day of the accident, Risa had looked at Riku briefly before looking up at the sky, searching for Dark—before she'd taken that step off the concrete curb?

There were two more ripped out pages from Risa's diary, but Riku couldn't bear to read more.

* * *

She found him outside, standing on the balcony adjoined to her second floor room. His black wings were spread in a half arc, a glossy feathered shield around him, and the sunlight traced each feather so beautifully that she was tempted to touch them in wonder. The tops of his wings stretched over a foot above his head and his wingspan, even with his wings only half unfurled, took up nearly the whole balcony.

"Dark…" she called softly, to get his attention. He looked like some kind of exotic archangel, and yet he looked a bit like a cat, too, the way he was soaking up the warm from the indirect rays of the sun.

He drew his wings in close to his body and turned to her with a welcoming smile, which quickly disappeared as he took in the signs of her distress. Even though she'd waited for almost an hour until she had calmed herself down, just looking at him almost made her start to tear up again.

"Are you afraid?" Dark asked right away. Since she _was_ afraid, but not in the way that he thought, her expression must have confusing to him. "You don't need to worry," he rushed to assure her. "Don't let him get to you."

When she didn't respond, his eyebrows rose slightly in puzzlement as he tried to figure out what was wrong. Hesitantly, he added, "I know it's been hard for you to have me constantly shadowing you. I didn't want to pressure you about anything, but just being around me all the time must be hard, when you're not really sure what you want."

Riku looked down at the floor, unable to keep looking at his face when he was like this. If anything, his sympathy and understanding just made it even harder for her to say anything, because the lump in her throat told her that if she tried to talk, it would sound like she was on the verge of tears.

A few strands of her hair fell forward, hiding her face, and Dark reached out to tenderly tuck it behind her ear again. "I'll try to give you some more space," he continued, the sincerity in his voice like an invisible knife to her. "Riku, I'm sorry if I've been too protective."

"I'm the one who should be sorry," she told him unevenly. "I was wrong to lead you on."

His eyes widened. "What are you talking about?"

She took a deep breath and met his startled gaze so he wouldn't be able to mistake the strength of her resolve. "I'm sorry, Dark. I'll never be able to love you."

Riku knew the exact moment that the meaning of her words penetrated through, the exact moment he understood her rejection. His expression froze at first, a mixture of disbelief and hurt in his eyes, before his face became nothing more than a lovely and unreadable mask. But he didn't have such complete control over his voice.

"What exactly do you mean?" he asked tightly, carefully. He had caught her slip of the tongue, because a tiny hope flared in his eyes. "You aren't _able _to love me, or you _don't_, Riku?"

The silence stretched on as her heart pounded so hard that she felt almost dizzy. "Is there a difference?" she asked, her voice soft. "I've made my decision. You said that you'd respect it. I still won't be with you, so is there really a difference?"

"Yes, there _is_," he said savagely, and then closed his eyes, taking a few deep breaths. When he looked at her again, she could see the turmoil in the dark violet of his irises. "Riku, please, just answer my question."

Then he added, stingingly, "You owe me that much, at least."

"I don't—" she began with determination, knowing that there was no other choice that wouldn't prolong the agony of this, but her throat closed up and the tears that had been glazing her vision spilled over. The sudden clarity was worse, because she held his shattered gaze with her own and saw everything as she broke his heart. "I don't love you, Dark."

"I don't believe you," he retorted, but she could see that he _did _believe it, despite his denial. It had happened so many times before to him, Riku knew, and she couldn't stop her tears from coming fast and furiously now, because she was hurting him so badly and he didn't deserve any of it.

Even when he flirted, even when he held hands with a girl, some part of him was waiting for the moment when it would end—because some part of him always believed that he wasn't good enough to be a real lover. He wasn't _real_ enough. In a way, he had always been preparing himself for this moment, guarding himself from the inevitable pain of losing the girl he loved to another man.

There was no other man, and he was more than real enough now, but he was still losing her.

"I'm sorry, Dark." The words were so inadequate and yet she had nothing else she could say. He'd opened himself up to her and had shared with her all of his secrets, even the deepest ones that Daisuke had probably only guessed at. Riku knew better than anyone how special she was to him, for him to do that. She knew just how fragile his happiness was, just how vulnerable he was, underneath all the charm and confidence.

Numbness stole over her limbs as the shock of what she was really doing set in. She knew he was looking at her intently, trying to find the slightest sign that she wasn't as dead serious about this as she seemed to be. All Riku could think about was that he'd been willing to give her everything. No matter how unreasonable she had been or what things she'd said to him, he hadn't let her go.

Dark had handed her his heart and she'd just dropped it.

Riku remembered with startling vividness how he had once called her brave. But she wasn't brave, she was pathetic. She was a coward—a worthless girl pretending to be consumed by her own selfish grief for her dead sister, all while betraying her memory in the very worst way, by stealing the dreams that never had a chance to come true.

"I don't believe you," Dark repeated again, anguish lining every word. "Riku, you don't mean it." But he took a step back from her, and then another, until he was close to the edge of the balcony. His shoulders were hunched, but his wings were spread out fully so that she almost felt surrounded by black, feathered walls. He was somehow both hard and helpless, the wild look in his eyes scaring her because it screamed of danger and violence.

"I'm so sorry," she said again, and those three words just tumbled out again and again, because this was exactly what she'd feared, but also a hundred times worse than what she'd imagined.

They weren't the words he wanted to hear and each time she said it was just another twist of the knife, because she meant it completely. Dark turned away from her and his hands gripped the railing of the balcony for a moment, his knuckles turning white.

Then he exploded into motion and Riku couldn't help but cry out, because it was beautiful and terrible all at once, and she had moved forward instinctively, only to be knocked to her knees with the force of his wing.

She remained on the ground as he disappeared, falling first out of sight before rising up again, her guardian angel who'd fallen for her and fallen because of her. She closed her eyes.

When she opened them again, she was alone on the balcony. With a cold and trembling hand, she reached out to pick up the glossy black feather. The gust of wind from his departure had dislodged something else, as well, from where it'd been hidden on the edge of the railing.

It was a small white envelope with a sheet of blank white paper.

* * *

A/N: There are only about four or five chapters left and this'll be my only DarkxRiku story after all. I still have one other D.N. Angel "story," _Release_, but it's mostly writing practice. Most likely, there will probably also be no more D.N. Angel works from me, though I might eventually get around to writing a few oneshots I planned out years ago. I know this chapter is shorter than the last few, but I'm already half done with the next, so there shouldn't be much of a wait. **Please review**!


	12. Relativity

**Dare You to Live**

By ElveNDestiNy

April 21, 2011

A/N: I've been pretty much out of the D.N. Angel fandom for good (as I suspect most people are, since it doesn't seem like Yukiru Sugisaki will finish the manga) and I have other angels on my mind these days—namely this one from Supernatural called Castiel. Anyway, thank you all for the encouragement and thanks for coming back to read this. I never thought it would take this long to finish and there will be less chapters than I'd planned. Also, sorry for the typos, I haven't edited this much. Feel free to point out any you notice; it actually helps me.

Okay, some shameless self advertising: If you like angels, know a bit about Yu-Gi-Oh (really just Seto Kaiba), and don't mind yaoi, I think you'll like _Angel's Grace_. It's downloadable as an ebook, just check my profile.

**- 12: Relativity -**

Riku held the folded sheet of paper between her cold fingers and tried to make sense of it all. For a moment, she could almost believe that the stalker was right—Risa had to be watching over all of them right now. Why else had she found those ripped-out diary pages? It was as if Risa had sent her a message, a warning: _I hope she never tries to steal Dark from me because I would never forgive her… _

"But I _let go_," Riku said to no one at all. And if these blank letters were somehow sent from heaven or if her twin had somehow written them as a ghost, angel, whatever—it didn't matter, because she just couldn't read them.

It was a distraction that she needed desperately, however. As long as she focused on this new mystery, she didn't have to think about what she'd done. She didn't have to look around and see the empty balcony, or examine the single black feather he had left behind.

The paper was blank and unblemished, no sign of erased pencil or indentations from pen marks. It looked exactly like the envelope she had found earlier. Dark had taken it, but he hadn't been able to find anything either, so unless it was some kind of super special invisible ink or something—

Riku scrambled to her feet, the paper crumpling in her hand as she stared down at it. In third grade, she and Risa had gone through a Magic Marker phase. There was a special marker with invisible ink. They'd passed blank notes to each other and to their friends, the kind where coloring over the paper with another marker would make the invisible writing show up.

Maybe this _was _a message from Risa after all. Could it really be that simple?

Riku walked back into her room and flattened the paper on the surface of her desk. She had read about invisible inks out of curiosity before and now she tried to remember what she'd learned back then. She didn't have any markers, but there were some kinds of security markers with fluorescent inks. The problem was, she didn't have a UV light to test that theory. Still, there were some inks that changed color if exposed to heat. It was the easiest thing she could try.

The lamp she had on her desk was old-fashioned and had a regular light bulb instead of one of the newer, twisty, energy-saving bulbs. Riku turned it on and pulled off the lampshade, holding the paper almost directly over the light bulb. After a few moments, she could feel the heat on the back of her hand, but nothing appeared. Holding her breath, she kept the paper close to the bulb, careful not to accidentally burn it. Perhaps the bulb simply wasn't hot enough?

Riku was starting to wonder if she should try it over the stove or if she could somehow find an iron when she glanced down and saw the distortion on the paper as it heated. Slowly but surely, yellowish discolorations appeared and then darkened to a golden brown. It looked like random markings at first and then she could just barely make out words.

_Dear Risa,_ the first line read, and Riku's heart jumped into her throat. If this wasn't from Risa, then there was only one other possibility…

_I wanted th__ese words to be seen by your eyes only. I know they will be, because you are truly my angel. I need to see you, Risa. I want to understand why you have come back to earth. Meet me at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in the northwest tower. I will be there at 9 o'clock tonight. Risa, come alone and don't tell anyone, or your dark one will suffer for it. _

Riku's stomach roiled and her hand was shaking so badly that she accidentally touched the bare light bulb. She drew away sharply at the burn, but the smell of scorched paper assaulted her. 9 o'clock—she glanced around the room for a clock and her eyes landed on the digital one on her nightstand. The glowing red letters proclaimed it to be 9:23. She was already late, if she was really going to this meeting.

It had to be from the stalker, but who did he mean by "the dark one"? If he was deluded enough to think Riku was Risa and some kind of angel, then he might have seen Dark's wings and assumed he was some kind of dark angel. No one else came close to fitting the description. But the letter had been left on the balcony _before _Dark had flown off, so it had to be an empty threat. He couldn't possibly be in any danger.

Unless the stalker had planned beforehand somehow to separate the two of them but hadn't found it necessary after Dark had flown off on his own. Riku bit her lip. By now, the stalker knew that Dark was almost always with her—he had stepped in to stop the kidnapping attempt, too.

She reread the letter, caught by indecision. Should she tell Dark? Should she tell Daisuke and Satoshi—but what if the stalker wasn't bluffing and actually did have some way of hurting Dark?

She grabbed her cell phone from her desk and called Dark's number, waiting anxiously as the phone rang. If Dark really was with the stalker, she would be putting him in danger. Still, Riku reasoned that if that were true, the stalker could have sent something far more frightening as proof, rather than simply a demand. The phone rang one last time without a response and she finally got his voicemail.

"Dark…" her voice trailed off as Riku realized she didn't even know how much she should say. "Call me back as soon as you get this. I need to talk to you." Riku hesitated—she sounded stressed and frightened, but what if Dark thought she wanted to talk about what had happened earlier? She was tempted to elaborate, but what if this crazy man already had him somehow? "I really need to talk to you," she repeated helplessly. "Please be okay, Dark."

Riku hung up and stared at the time displayed on her phone, 9:27 pm. She needed to leave right now if she was going to meet this man—but everything in her told her it was stupid to do so alone. Still, it was possible that if the stalker really thought she was an angel, she could reason with him, talk to him, even pretend with him. She just needed to confirm for herself that he had no way of hurting Dark.

She had to go. The fear she felt transmuted to anger over all of it—the stalker, Risa dying and leaving her alone, her parents' incomprehension over her grief, the damning diary pages she had found—Riku felt like she might explode with how much she _felt_. What right did this man have to do this to her, to threaten Dark?

She was sick of being afraid of everything. This was the man who was trying to terrorize her. He was perverting the memory of her sister, writing about Risa as though he actually had known her. Maybe he had even started stalking Risa before the accident.

Riku might have been able to forgive even that, but then this was the man who had tried to break into her house and had almost succeeded in kidnapping her. It had happened so fast that she hadn't actually understood how much danger she had been in, but he had slashed at Dark with a knife.

What else would he do the next time he thought she was vulnerable? Riku couldn't let him get away with this. She couldn't just go on living as if she didn't know there was always someone lurking in the shadows.

She texted Daisuke and Satoshi even as she left her house, telling them that she was going to meet Risa's stalker at the cathedral.

* * *

The Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels looked more like a castle than a church. It was easily one of the oldest buildings in town and its high gothic spire towers looked like they were straight out of some fairy tale. While doing a project for school, Riku had learned that the cathedral was just over a hundred years old. It had been built by a French missionary Father and while it was mostly abandoned now for religious purposes, it was still open as a historic site.

Riku had always admired the sheer beauty of the architecture that had gone into the cathedral. Now, however, she struggled to hold back a shiver as she entered the dark and empty building. The gleaming wooden pews and floor were bathed in fragments of blues, reds, and greens from the light streaming through the stained glass windows, which depicted angels and martyrs.

Just looking at the intricate expressions of peace and suffering on their faces made her heart beat faster. This late at night, the place was deserted and should have been closed, but the main door had been unlocked when she had tried it. This was such a bad idea, but since she didn't have any good ones as alternatives, it would have to do.

Riku passed the statue of an angel at the base of the stairs to the northwest tower. She hesitated and checked her cell phone. She had put it on silent, so she found five missed calls and seven frantic text messages from Satoshi and Daisuke telling her to wait and that they were coming right away. No response from Dark, though.

Swallowing hard, Riku continued up the stairs. It was already 9:45. The tower went up almost five stories, but it took almost no time at all for her to reach the top. She gripped her cell phone tightly in her hand—she didn't even have a knife, since she figured that if she was overpowered, she would only be giving her attacker a weapon. All she had was Dark's black feather tucked in the front pocket of her jacket, as if it could give her protection. The best she could hope for was that the stalker was crazy but nonviolent.

There was a man standing in front of the floor-length stained glass window in the small room. He turned when Riku stepped into the room and smiled at her, eyes gleaming behind his glasses. Riku's mouth went dry as she remembered the name Satoshi had dug up from the website about her twin.

"Fukuda…Kohei?" He gave a slight nod in confirmation, a blue patch of light illuminating his lips in a macabre fashion. Other than that, he looked average in every way. Even knowing that he was Risa's stalker and seeing him in person didn't spark any recognition. Despite the warm weather, Fukuda was wearing a long, dark coat.

"You're lovely, Risa," said the man in a soft, almost monotone voice. He stepped closer to her and Riku backed away until she was in the doorway. "I'm glad you know my name, but I expected nothing less. I needed to see you…"

He held out a trembling hand but let it drop away when Riku made no move to take it.

"My name is _Riku_," she retorted, glad that her voice didn't quiver. "Where's Dark and what do you want with us?"

She should've guessed as soon as she stepped in that this man couldn't have laid a hand on Dark if he tried. Sure, Fukuda was just as creepy as she had imagined, if not even more so, but if she could just keep him here until Satoshi and Daisuke arrived, he would be arrested. This whole thing would be over and she could do one last thing for her twin—she could get rid of the stalker tainting her memory and prolonging her death into some kind of game.

"Risa…" Fukuda said, drawing out the name in a way that made Riku feel filthy. "I saw you that day, Risa. I thought I killed you… I read about how you died. You haunted me and I thought the only way I could be absolved of my sins was to kill myself. But then you came back, and I _knew_. I had to see you. I had to ask for your forgiveness—"

"Risa was my _twin_." Riku gripped the frame of the doorway with one hand, her fingers turning white from pressure and nerves. Her voice was hard compared to Fukuda's whispery words, but she couldn't take any more of his rambling. "She died."

"I know, Risa. I killed you." Fukuda held out his hands wide, palms up, as if expecting Riku to understand. "But I didn't mean it, you know that! I was afraid, so I drove away—"

The blunt statement threw Riku off track and she stared at the man, too many puzzle pieces suddenly fitting together in her mind. He couldn't possibly be… "W-what do you mean?"

"You never should have died, Risa. But _I _made you into what you are. I made you into an angel."

His face seemed to blur before her eyes. It seemed impossible. He had followed her here—he had been there from the very start of this nightmare, and she hadn't even known. "You were the cab driver," Riku whispered through dry lips. "You hit her and then you just drove away."

"I didn't understand until later that I hadn't sinned," Fukuda continued, ignoring her. "I hadn't taken your life. No, I _gave _you life. I made you into an angel. It was my gift to you and now, now you can finally be _mine_."

Riku was too lost in her own thoughts. This was the man who had killed Risa. Even though it had been an accident, he had disappeared afterward, leaving Riku with the shattered pieces of her life and far too many dreams of a nameless, faceless man hidden in the shadows of her memory. How could she have stood before him and felt nothing—no recognition, no sudden knowledge that this was _that man_?

It had been an accident and she could still have let that go, but now he was back and this was no accident.

"Risa was my twin," she repeated, anger threading through her voice along with grief. "_Risa_ is dead! You drove away and she never woke up again. You broke her—you killed her."

As soon as Riku uttered the words, she regretted them. She couldn't afford to provoke him. Her goal was only to stall for time. Satoshi and Daisuke would probably arrive at any minute. But she had never expected this—that everything would end up where it began again: her, the cab driver, and Risa's memory hanging so heavily over both of them that it was almost as if she were still here.

And Dark was nowhere.

Fukuda stared at her with wide eyes and took another few steps forward until Riku had to force herself not to back away. He cocked his head to one side and looked at her again, then suddenly lunged and grabbed her wrist in his hand. "You're lying," he snarled.

The total change in tone and his death grip on her wrist freaked her out, but Riku kept still. "You're confused. I can explain everything," she tried. She inhaled and then let out a breath slowly, feeling a trickle of cold sweat down her spine. How many times did she have to say it before he believed her? Or was he too far gone in delusion? "My name is Riku. Risa was my sister."

"Shut up!" Fukuda's fingers squeezed tighter until Riku felt as though her wrist bones were grinding together. "I understand now. You're a devil, aren't you? That's why you're always with the dark one. I should have known when I saw his black wings. No angel would look like that. And _you_! You have the same face, but you're not her. What have you done to Risa?"

Riku's mouth fell open in surprise before her heart sank. If this man really believed all that, he was more than just delusional. The fact that Dark really did have wings just made this all the more impossible. She couldn't reason with him, but maybe… "I would never hurt Risa. I loved—I love her. She means everything to me."

"_Liar_." The next moment she screamed as Fukuda jerked her until he was holding her tight, her back to his front—or at least she tried to scream, because his other hand came up and covered her mouth, fingers pressing so deeply into her face that Riku's eyes watered with pain. His other hand twisted both of her arms behind her, her wrists slender enough that he had an iron grip on both. "You've been pretending to be her. You're trying to live her life!"

All Riku could do was make muffled sounds as she tried to break out of his grip, but for a man not much taller than her, Fukuda was insanely strong. All her struggles only made him laugh—it was another disgustingly wispy sound, more of a breathy chuckle than anything else.

She felt his wet lips touch her neck and she stopped struggling for half a second before renewing her efforts, fueled by fear. "You want to be an angel, don't you. You want to be Risa, but you're not worth half of her. You're pretty, but you're a devil. I've seen you with the dark one. Kissing him, your hands all over him… Come on, whore, how do you like this?"

He forced her body flush against his own and then Riku's world went white in a whole new level of panic as she realized that psychotic or not, he was aroused. Her stomach lurched and turned over, and then with a sudden rush of adrenaline she flung her head back and hit his nose with the back of her skull, more by accident than intention.

It still worked. In the moment of surprise, Riku jerked free of him but overbalanced with the force of her motion. She hit the ground hard on her hands and knees but flung herself up and forward again. Fukuda grabbed at her arm but she elbowed him hard into his stomach and he let go. Still, she fell again and he kicked at her, his foot catching her ankle dead on and so forcefully that it went completely numb after the initial fiery pain.

Fukuda threw himself on top of her, not caring that he was using her as a cushion for his fall. The impact slammed the back of her head against the floor and Riku's vision went dark for a moment. She shoved him with all her strength and succeeded in pushing him half off her and it wasn't enough, she was still trapped beneath him—

"Riku!" Over Fukuda's shoulder Riku could see familiar red hair and she could've wept with relief as Daisuke and Satoshi entered the room. But before she could even say anything, it was too late.

"Stay back!" Fukuda warned. "Don't come closer."

His demands were unnecessary. Both Daisuke and Satoshi had came to a stop at the entranceway. Riku stared up into Fukuda's face, the glare on his glasses obscuring his eyes from her view, and remembered how he had slashed at Dark with a knife when he had tried to pull her into the car.

She could feel the sharp metal edge of a blade pressed against her throat.

* * *

Riku was very much alive. She was neither a ghost nor an angel. There was nothing particularly remarkable or special about her; she was just a normal human girl. But she was _alive_ and she wanted to stay that way. Somehow being threatened by a very sharp knife reminded her more of this fact than anything else that had happened.

"Please…let me go," she begged. She tried to look into Fukuda's eyes and made her voice as sincere as she could. It didn't take much acting on her part. "It doesn't have to be like this. They just want to help me."

"Don't hurt her," Satoshi added, his voice like ice. "If you do, this won't end well. You know that."

Fukuda was crazy, but he wasn't stupid. He stared hard at Satoshi and then nodded. "Commander Hiwatari. This has nothing to do with the police. Call off the men that are coming or I kill her right now."

Satoshi hesitated but Fukuda didn't. In a motion too swift for Riku to see coming, he took the knife and slashed across her exposed collarbone. Before she could even react to the sudden trail of pain, the bloodied blade was against her throat again.

"Do it right now. In front of me. I want to hear it, and no tricks or she'll have more to worry about than a little cut."

Riku bit her lip hard enough that she tasted blood. It was hardly just a little cut. It was also one thing to be worried that the stalker lusted after Risa, and by default, her. It was a whole different thing to find herself playing the part of the hostage in a standoff.

She stared at the marble statue of some kind of warrior saint in the alcove next to them and listened as Satoshi did as Fukuda ordered, relaying orders to stand down into his radio unit. She would have offered a prayer if she'd been able to think clearly enough to do so.

Just as the young police commander finished speaking to his men, Riku gasped as something burned against her stomach. Heat flared, almost as if someone was holding a flame against her bare skin. Fukuda looked down at her, his eyes widening in the first hint of fear she had seen in him.

Unable to move her head, Riku stared at the man until she saw what had caught his attention. A black feather floated up into the air—it was the memento of Dark that she had stuck in the pocket of her jacket. It was glowing a dark violet now and she caught her breath as it rose slowly until it was right before Fukuda's face.

Then suddenly the entire room was filled with swirling black feathers and she heard the sound of buffeting wing beats. Somewhere in the cathedral, a clock struck ten, the sound thundering through the floor that Risa was sitting on.

"Dark!" she heard Daisuke cry and then Fukuda finally let go of her, his knife swinging out in an arc. Above her, Riku watched as Dark dodged out of the way, the tip of the blade narrowly missing one of his wings.

"_You_," Fukuda snarled, thrusting the knife forward again, but Riku caught at his arm and his aim went wild. Dark landed a punch on Fukuda face but Riku screamed as Fukuda's knife slashed across her palm.

Too many things happened then for Riku to follow. Satoshi, Daisuke, Dark filled her vision as she tried to scramble backwards and out of the way. Finding himself outnumbered, Fukuda turned back to her. Dark dived at him, intent on bringing him down.

"NO!" Riku's cry came too late as Fukuda feinted and drove his knife into Dark's side. The blade reappeared and she watched as Fukuda slammed it into Dark's left wing and pulled it out.

She threw herself at Fukuda even as Dark ripped something from the statue of the warrior saint that Riku had seen earlier—it was some kind of dagger, a _real _dagger.

It didn't matter by then, though. Riku wasn't strong enough to take out Fukuda in any way, but the force of her collision with him shoved him up against the wall—only it wasn't a wall, it was a stained glass window, the colored panes gorgeous but thin.

They shattered. Riku tried to draw back but it was too late and Fukuda's arms were around her, pulling her with him.

Then she was falling endlessly.

* * *

A/N: **Please review**! :]


	13. Realize

**Dare You to Live**

By ElveNDestiNy

June 11, 2011

Dedicaton: To E, for all the times you've heard me talk about this story. This defenestration is just for you! P.S. Anyone out there who doesn't know what that word means, go look it up in the dictionary :)

A/N: Sorry for taking so long to update again. I've been writing a lot, but for other stories. Anyway, the twins' song "Two Wishes" (Futatsu no negai) from the D.N. Angel OST has been a great inspiration to me. Both the lyrics and the voices are lovely, so I tried to capture that emotion in my portrayal of Riku and Risa's relationship in this story.

Of course, Dark's song, "Kodou – Whenever," has always been the primary soundtrack for this story in my mind: _call my name / I'll take the sadness endlessly raining on you / I offer up my body / even risk my life / I want to hold on to your smile until the very end…_

**- 13: Realize -**

For a moment, all Riku could see was the face of her sister's killer. Fukuda's eyes gleamed with unholy light before his grip on her loosened and they came apart in midair. Shadows swallowed up his face, just as they did everything else—it was pitch black outside the cathedral and she could not see the ground beneath.

In a way, it made her fall turn into a dream.

It should have all happened too fast for her to be terrified, and yet, like on the day of the accident, time seemed to slow in Riku's mind. She felt every sensation with an intensity that almost broke her, as if her body knew that these were her last moments on earth. The sound of rushing air filled her ears and she closed her eyes automatically, though she was only trading one kind of darkness for another. Her mind went blank with fear, an empty void so complete that it was almost like acceptance.

There was nothing stronger than the pull of gravity and some part of her knew that the seconds were passing faster than her heart could beat, too fast even for her lungs to draw breath, for the scream in her throat to be released.

She could almost believe that she was floating, could almost pretend that there was no ground below her at all, in all that darkness.

Her whole body jerked when the collision came, knocking all the remaining breath out of her body. The impact was as if she had slammed into a wall and yet, somehow the _wall_ moved, too—the pain that her body had already anticipated just didn't come.

Something warm and hard gripped her tight and her eyes flew open to see the outline of black shadows against the sky, blocking out the stars. She could _feel _it, the epic struggle in midair between one breath and the next: all the determination and strength of a winged being pitted against the unbreakable laws of gravity. For a single moment, it was as if the world itself held its breath. Riku hung awkwardly in midair, neither falling nor flying.

Then gravity won out after all and she was falling—but she was still being held tight and her own arms were wrapped around his chest with more strength than she had ever used before in her life. She could feel the strong wings that spread wide in a bone-snapping effort to slow their descent.

Dark's entire body jerked hard and he cried out in pain, the sound knifing through the air even more strongly than the piercing screams of the man still plummeting to earth below them. His arms, gripping her, were covered in something warm and slick. Riku remembered in a flash how Fukuda had stabbed at his wing repeatedly with the knife.

There was just enough time for her to realize that Dark couldn't save both of them. She was too heavy, he was too injured, and any moment now the ground would appear in the darkness below them. There was just enough time for her to realize that he could still save himself.

_Let me go_, she might have screamed, except her bones had all turned to water and her body felt as brittle and fragile as a piece of ice.

He still held on.

They crashed down together, entangled in each other, and then there was only darkness.

* * *

Risa was sitting beside her, staring off into the distance, distinctly not even in the direction of the teacher at the front of the room. While some of their classmates looked bored to death, Risa was dreamy-eyed, lost in her pleasant fantasies. With a sigh of exasperation, Riku stopped writing notes and poked her twin with the back of her mechanical pencil.

"Risa!" she hissed. "Pay attention or I won't even let you borrow my notes for the test on Friday."

Risa sat up with a guilty jerk at the poke just as their teacher turned back to look at the students. Fortunately, Kimura-sensei didn't seem to have caught Riku's furious whispering. Their teacher's eyes brightened as an idea occurred to her.

"Ah, we do have a set of identical twins in our class, don't we?" Kimura-sensei desperately tried to interject some energy into her apathetic class. A few of the tired-looking students sat up straighter in response, but the majority barely twitched.

_Not again_, Riku thought in irritation, glancing over to see how Risa was taking being used as the next example. But her twin's attention span today seemed to be shorter than a fly's. Riku could easily guess what she was thinking about, which just added to her own irritation. Daisuke noticed her annoyance from two rows across and gave her a sympathetic smile.

Riku's heart skipped a beat and she resolutely faced forward, trying her best to pay attention to the words that seemed to go in one ear and out the other. She liked science most of the time but listening to the technicalities of RNA and DNA structures was just torture today.

"…so that's the thing about twins," Kimura-sensei was saying. "Every individual in the world has a unique sequence of genes, like a biological fingerprint. It's better than a fingerprint, actually." She paused for dramatic effect. "But see…identical twins have a peculiar quirk. They have the _exact same_ DNA."

_So even on __the biological level, I'm not unique at all_, Riku translated in her head with another silent sigh. Kimura-sensei, not quite getting the reaction she had clearly wanted, continued to talk about DNA sequencing and how useful it had become for forensics and criminology.

Her focus shifted from twins to the young prodigy she had sitting in her class, who as possibly the youngest police commander ever, certainly knew a lot about criminology. She called on Hiwatari Satoshi a few times while the good students diligently wrote down what was being said.

Riku didn't bother to write it down in her notes—she wasn't going to be able to ever forget that little bit of information about identical twins anyway.

Judging by the expression on Risa's face, the person with the _exact same _DNA as her hadn't even heard. Riku poked Risa again, harder, eliciting a small "ow!" and a glare. Out of the corner of her eye, Riku saw with surprise that Daisuke was looking unusually interested in the science lecture. Or maybe he was just interested in her twin, and not DNA.

"Didn't you hear what _sensei _just said?" Riku asked Risa. "If I went and—" she was going to say something cliché like _committed murder_, but she glanced down at the wings Risa had drawn on her notes and changed her mind. "If I'd…stolen some priceless artifact from a museum, the police could totally think that _you _were the thief."

"Huh?" Well, the mention of stealing and thieves had gotten Risa's attention, as expected. "Wait, what?"

Risa hadn't bothered to keep her voice down and Kimura-sensei stopped right in the middle of her lecture, turning to give both twins a strongly disapproving and disappointed look. Riku turned back to her notes guiltily and they both sat quietly through the rest of lesson, although Risa still spent half the time drawing chibi Dark in various poses in the margins of her notebook.

God, her twin's obsession had gotten even worse recently, what with all the Dark sightings and Risa's mysterious encounter with the phantom thief that one time. Riku resisted the temptation to touch her lips with the back of her hand, remembering with a little shiver how exactly her first kiss had been…well, stolen.

When was the last time she had kept a secret this big from Risa? But Riku knew her twin almost as well as she knew herself, and Risa would absolutely freak out if Riku said anything at all about it. What could Riku say, anyway? Risa wouldn't see it as Dark stealing her twin's first kiss, she'd see it as Riku stealing a kiss _from _her beloved, uber-cool phantom thief Dark.

And even thinking back to that moment made Riku feel sort of funny inside, like she was nervous about something, only she wasn't. For someone so uber-cool, he'd looked pretty surprised after the kiss, hadn't he? Not that Riku had really noticed, since she had been too busy blushing.

His lips had been surprisingly soft and hot against her own and then his mouth had opened and Riku's lips had parted ever so slightly in instinctive response—with a sudden start, Riku realized that she was blushing again and her heart was racing.

She was sitting in the middle of class, not out on the balcony with a crazy pervert! Why couldn't she just forget it and start over? Thankfully, before Riku had time to really think about the…_incident _more, the bell rang. Chairs scraped and students shuffled around the room as they were finally freed from class.

Daisuke wandered over toward them, obviously eager to talk to Risa, and Riku tried to quell the small clench of disappointment in her chest…

* * *

She was dreaming, she knew, because somehow everything around her changed, and nothing about it seemed particularly strange. One moment she was reliving a few hours from class and then it was as if she had floated through time and space.

Riku was in her room at their house, and she could see her suitcase all packed and ready to go. Next to it was Risa's. Her twin came in just then and sat down on Riku's bed, her eyes red and puffy from crying.

Part of Riku knew exactly what was going on—this was a memory, too. They were moving far, far away and these were the last few hours they would spend in the Harada house. They hadn't even come back to visit during the summers, although at least the house hadn't been sold.

But at the same time, this wasn't a memory, not exactly, because Riku knew that her twin hadn't talked to her at all that day. Risa had isolated herself and Riku, dealing with her own feelings over leaving Daisuke, hadn't had the energy or time to seek out her twin. They'd spent most of the later flight sitting next to each other but not speaking, both lost in their own miserable thoughts.

In real life, Risa had never come into this room. But in this dream, or whatever this was, Riku's sister was most definitely here, right now, and that was what mattered.

"Hey," Riku greeted her softly, a sudden wave of longing sweeping through her as her eyes took in her sister's familiar form. She had missed her so much. Seeing Risa again, she could hardly imagine ever being separated, even if part of her mind knew what the future held for them and knew that this never happened and would never happen.

"I don't want to go," Risa told her in a choked voice, her eyes large and liquid. She turned her head and stared blindly out the window at the deserted balcony outside. "Why does it have to be like this?"

It was only then that Riku realized what was so jarring about this whole moment. Her twin appeared as Riku had seen her last, as a beautiful girl who had just turned eighteen years old. But they had been four years younger when they had moved out of this house and away from all their friends. Neither of them were fourteen year old girls about to enter high school in a completely foreign country. Even though this seemed as if it was Riku's memory of her last day they had spent in the house before leaving Azumano City, it wasn't.

But seeing her twin so distraught, whether or not this was just a figment of her imagination, still moved her. Without hesitation, Riku took a seat right next to Risa on the bed, letting her sister lean her head against her shoulder. She'd always done that when she was upset, ever since either of them could remember. "Risa..."

But what reassurances could she say, knowing what Risa's future was like? Knowing that the girl who was slowly becoming a woman would never get the chance to marry, have children, to really even live life at all? It would be a lie to say that everything would be all right...especially when now Riku was living the dream that Risa had dreamed.

Dark. The name hovered on the tip of Riku's tongue, the weight of Risa's head on her shoulder suddenly too heavy, like her guilt. Worse yet, she could feel hot and damp tears soaking into her sleeve. "Risa, don't cry..."

"I don't want to go, but I have to, don't I?" Risa lifted her head and turned to Riku with a strange expression. She looked forlorn but something in her eyes also hinted at growing acceptance and understanding. Her sorrow seemed to lend her face a new kind of beauty and strength, turning her mouth pensive and her profile almost statuesque.

A cold feeling shivered down Riku's spine as she really heard what Risa had said. Suddenly, she wasn't sure what this conversation was about. "What do you mean?"

Risa just smiled sadly, and it was the smile of a lost angel. "I know this is the way it'll be and I know that I'll still have to go. Things just happen this way sometimes, right?" She looked out at the balcony again, her gaze distant, as if she were imagining the future.

"You're scaring me," Riku told her, a little afraid to even disturb the tranquility that Risa seemed to have settled into.

"Don't be afraid," Risa said, and Riku was struck by how odd it was that their usual roles were reversed. How many times had she said those words to her younger sister? Risa's voice was light and airy. "It'll be all right, in the end. I always knew it would be, somehow. You were always there for me, ever since I can remember."

"Well, Mom used to say that when you were born, I was already there waiting for you," Riku recalled hesitantly.

Risa turned to face her almost directly and Riku found herself captivated by her twin's eyes—the eyes that could almost be her own. But it wasn't like looking into a mirror at all, even if on the outside they looked almost identical. Risa's personality shone out, brighter and bubblier than her own, as if she had a greater joy for life because she somehow knew she would have fewer years to live.

"I'm sorry I can't be there for you, Riku." Risa hugged her tightly and Riku almost gasped at the strength of Risa's arms around her. She had forgotten how hard Risa had always hugged her, how comforting the sensation had been as they had grown up together. "I'm so sorry I have to go."

"No," Riku whispered into her sister's soft hair, and it wasn't just that she couldn't bear to let go. "I should be the one who's sorry."

Risa let go and drew back, indignation lighting her features. "You think you're taking my dreams from me, don't you?"

"I..." Riku's mouth went dry.

"Well, you're not," Risa said bluntly, flipping her hair over her shoulder. "Riku, do you really believe that I didn't know how much you did for me? How much you always watched over me, just because you're an hour older than me?"

Riku just stared, surprised at the harsh note to her sister's words and finding it almost creepy than Risa was talking about herself and them in past tense. "Risa, what are you saying?"

"I'm saying that I'm not a child any more, silly," said Risa, her eyes flashing. "Neither of us are, least of all you. And you don't have to give up what you want just because you think I want it too."

"Wait, I never—" Riku protested, only to be cut off when Risa stood up abruptly, her hands on her hips. Her expression ferocious, she seemed to dare Riku to say anything.

"_Yes,_ yes, you did! You used to do that all the time. I just never said anything, but I knew what was going on. If we both wanted the same toy, you'd let me have it and pretend that you never wanted it. But Dark isn't a toy, Riku."

Riku felt the breath leave her body as if her twin had suddenly grown another head before her eyes. This didn't feel like a dream at all. It felt like Risa was really before her, yelling at her. "I never thought he was! But he's—"

"Mine?" her twin interjected. "He's not anybody's, except he chose to be _yours_. God, how can you be so dense?" Risa sat back down on the bed with a flop, her shoulders slumping in dejection despite her flippancy. "I know you love him."

For a moment, it was dead quiet in the room, as if both of them were holding their breaths after her simple statement. The denial that sprang to Riku's lips died away before she could voice it. Risa finally turned her head, catching and holding Riku's gaze with her own.

"Maybe…maybe I do, but I can't do this to you," Riku blurted out, and then turned away, unable to keep looking into Risa's eyes. Tears of horror and shame prickled her eyes and she closed them.

She felt Risa's hand on her back, rubbing her spine soothingly in an up and down motion. "You have to let me go," she said steadily. "Don't you think you deserve happiness too? Don't you know that what I want most is for you and Dark to be able to live the way I couldn't, even if it's with each other?"

Risa's breath caught a little at the last few words, despite her determined tone. Riku turned her head sharply to see that Risa's eyes were glistening with tears. Still, her twin nodded once, jerkily, in affirmation of what she had said.

"You know I've always..." Riku started, unable to finish her confession. Risa seemed to understand anyway.

"I thought so, even back then," she said, her voice soft and lovely. "There was always something strong between you two."

That was true, even if she had been sure that what was strong was their mutual dislike. Riku could remember Daisuke asking her, a long time ago, what she thought of Dark. Without hesitation, she had told him that she despised him. Knowing what she knew now, that Dark had been within Daisuke then, she wondered what they had felt then. Had Daisuke felt Dark hurting inside of him at her pitiless words? Or at that point, had Dark still despised her as well?

Riku stared down at the hands she had clenched in her lap. This was just part of her dream. It wasn't really Risa here; it was just her guilt, finding a way to sooth her conscience. What was real were the diary pages she had found. What was real was that she had given him up; she had broken his heart, she had betrayed her twin...

"Riku," Risa said, so seriously it almost broke her heart. "If you would do the same for me, why won't you believe that I'd do the same for you?"

* * *

"Riku, don't move!" Strong hands gripped her shoulders as she thrashed, pain lancing through her body. "HEY! Riku, _please_. You're okay, you're safe now…"

But she wasn't. She knew that she was falling and they were going to die together—she _knew_ that Dark wasn't going to let go.

Riku's eyes snapped open, but instead of the darkness she expected to see, she was blinded by light. Cautiously she opened her eyes again, letting them adjust until she could make out that she was in an off-white room.

Crimson eyes stared down at her, surprise quickly changing to relief.

"You're…awake," Daisuke breathed, still holding her shoulders, as if he didn't really believe it.

"Wh—" Her throat was dry and her voice cracked embarrassingly, so Riku accepted the cup of water that Daisuke poured and pressed into her hand. Okay, so it was obvious where she was. Her heart skipped a beat as she saw the familiar monitors and controls—things she hadn't seen since Risa had died.

Her right arm was in a cast and she felt stabbing pains through the right side of her chest whenever she took a breath, so she could guess what that meant. Even though she'd never had broken ribs before, it was pretty clear that she'd at least fractured one or three.

"You've been in a coma," Daisuke told her, and now that she was more alert, Riku could see the signs of exhaustion and stress on him. "You hit your head pretty hard, Riku."

His voice cracked on her name and he sat down in the chair next to her bed with a sigh. "The doctors said you'd wake up when you were ready, but you know that they can't really ever be sure with these kinds of things…"

"How long?" Riku managed, her throat still feeling like someone had sandpapered it. At least she didn't have a tube down her throat or a respirator, but she was kind of afraid to ask any other questions.

Daisuke rested his forehead in his hands, not looking at her directly. "Almost a week."

She had dreamed, Riku recalled, but she only remembered a couple of them clearly. Maybe she hadn't been dreaming at all—maybe she'd really been dying, and that was why she had been able to talk to Risa?

"You fractured four of your ribs and broke your arm," Daisuke explained, keep it matter-of-fact. "Everything should heal all right, though. It'll just take some time."

Since it was clear he wasn't going to volunteer the information, she still had to ask. Riku forced the words out. "So what happened to…"

"Fukuda Kohei is dead," Daisuke said in a hard voice, and as Riku took in his statement, she realized just how far they've come and how much they had all grown up. She was no longer the girl lost in the woods, afraid of bears, and he was no longer just the cheerfully smiling boy who had showed up to rescue her.

"He died from the fall?" she asked, just to be sure. They had been five stories up—of course he had died. He was human. But then, she was, too.

Daisuke nodded, expression somber. "Pretty much instantly."

She should have felt something over it, Riku supposed. Someone had actually died in all this craziness. She had accidentally pushed him and herself out the window; she was at least indirectly responsible for his death. But remembering how frightened she had been during the confrontation, remembering how gleeful and how vicious Fukuda had been when he had stabbed Dark repeatedly with the knife, she couldn't help but be glad.

He had terrorized her for months, first as the stranger behind the hit-and-run, then as Risa's stalker, and finally as some horrific combination of both those identities. It was as if the shadow over her soul had finally lifted. Riku could finally let go of all the annoyance and stress she had felt ever since that day.

It was fitting in a way, wasn't it? A random accident had taken Risa's life. Another accident had brought it all full circle, had ended the strange chain of events that had followed from her death. Maybe it was cosmic justice. All she could feel was relief.

Daisuke was looking at her carefully and with concern, however. She knew he wasn't just measuring her response to the information. Riku took a deep breath, immediately regretting it as sharp pains shot through the right side of her chest.

"Why—" she almost stopped, but now that she had begun, she couldn't hold back the questions even if she had wanted to. "Why haven't you said anything about Dark? Where is he? Is he all right?"

Daisuke avoided her eyes and his voice gentled, making her heart beat just that much faster. "He was trying to shield you when you both hit the ground. Riku—"

"He's not dead," she whispered from numb lips. "He can't be."

Daisuke looked briefly startled and then cursed at himself. "No! Riku, that wasn't what I meant at all."

But she could almost remember what had happened. Dark had been holding her so tight that it had hurt, his fingers digging deeply into her flesh, and then he had given up on trying to keep his wings spread and had pulled her into him—had somehow rolled them in midair as they fell, until Riku chest was pressed against him as if she were laying on him.

"Dark is alive," Daisuke assured her, but his voice sounded hollow. "He's pretty hurt, Riku."

She sat up in the bed, her breath leaving her in a muffled gasp as her body protested the movement. Daisuke finally turned to meet her gaze. "What aren't you telling me?"

He hesitated. "We think he's healing, but we're not sure. Towa-chan says that it's kind of like when I was trapped in the Wings of Memory, trying to find all the feathers so that I could free Dark. The best we can guess is that he's trapped in his mind, or his own dimension/"

Riku frantically tried to process this. "So…he's in a coma? Like I was?"

"Kind of," Daisuke said evasively. "We're concerned that he has to wake up before his body can really heal. His wings are broken, Riku, and no doctor is going to be able to help with that."

With a sinking feeling, she understood what Daisuke was saying. Dark wasn't really getting better—and he was injured even before the crash. If she'd ended up with broken ribs and a broken arm, and if Fukuda had died basically on impact, then how much worse had it been for Dark?

"Can't anyone wake him up?" It was unfair, Riku knew, to expect Daisuke to be able to do anything. They weren't the same person anymore. She wasn't even sure how much of a bond there still was between them. But she had to ask. "Can't you do anything to help him?"

"It's not that simple. We tried, but I couldn't reach him. He's hurt…both physically and spiritually."

"Oh…" She couldn't seem to say anything else. Ruby red eyes looked at her without accusation, but she still felt her stomach drop to the floor. "What does that mean, Daisuke?"

Her friend swallowed hard. "It means that the magic isn't letting him go. Or…that he doesn't want to come back."

* * *

tbc

* * *

A/N: I'm sorry to leave it at yet another somewhat-cliffhanger, but **please review**! Thank you all for continuing to read and review – without your support, this story definitely wouldn't be here!


	14. Reflection

**Dare You to Live**

By ElveNDestiNy

December 16, 2011

A/N: I'm sorry for taking so long. I actually had this written a while ago, but I never got around to editing it and then totally forgot that I never actually posted it. Anyway, this chapter and the last chapter refer back to the "Wings of Memory" arc, when Dark lost his identity and Daisuke had to search in Dark's imaginary world for ten feathers, held by people important to Dark. The last and tenth feather was held by Dark/Daisuke himself, but Daisuke took the ninth one from Riku. Some of the explanation of that here is paraphrased from what Daisuke says/thinks in the manga. Also, the quotes in italics here are taken from the Ice and Snow arc.

By the way, I actually STILL haven't edited this, so it's rough. You've been warned. I'm sure I'll come back and fix it up, but my priority right now is just to post this and the last chapter sometime hopefully before New Year's. I mean, taking from 2006 to 2012 for a story with only 15 chapters? Yikes! That's slower than a snail and really embarrassing.

**- 14: Reflection -**

_If something were to happen and you were in danger, would you call for me or Daisuke?_

Even back then, Dark had turned away before he could hear the answer. After all, he had already known what the answer would be. The girl standing behind him pretty much despised him. She had even admitted as much to Daisuke, never guessing that in a way, she was actually telling Dark to his face. Hearing it had stung at first, of course, but it didn't really matter in the end, since he'd started to remind himself that it was actually a good thing that she had no interest in him whatsoever.

It was a fact always hard to remember in the first few months after he "woke up" in the body of the next young male of the Niwa bloodline, but Dark was only living a small bit of someone else's life. He had no right to all of the things he enjoyed through the virtue of his host—no right to a mother's kind smiles, a best friend's banter, and especially the affections of a young and pretty girl.

He was, as he had told Daisuke, simply an existence without end. Dark wasn't even sure who he was or how exactly he had come into being. Being the phantom thief gave him a purpose, but sometimes he wondered if that was all he was and if that was all he would ever be.

He wasn't even human, but he had human feelings, human wants and wishes…the truth was, sometimes he had forgotten that he had more in common with the magical pieces of artwork that he stole than with Niwa Daisuke, whose identity he was borrowing. Not that it ever lasted all that long anyway—just that brief, always crazy period as the males of the Niwa family transitioned from youth to man.

And sure enough, that day came even with Daisuke. Dark was thrust back into the twilight of dormancy—the strange periods of meaningless time where he existed only in theory. If he was grateful for anything, it was that mostly to him, it was like he had fallen asleep. At least he was spared endless years of boredom and waiting. And who knew if there would ever be an end to it—if perhaps one day, while Dark was dormant, the Niwa family itself would come to an abrupt and unexpected end?

If Daisuke had not accidentally broken the seal by painting that magical portrait of Dark, Dark never even would have become a person in his own right. It was as if he were Pinocchio suddenly turned into a real boy. Oh, Dark was undeniably still a little supernatural, but what mattered most was that he was human _enough_—and finally about to "coexist" with Daisuke as they had both dreamed.

Dark had seen the portrait once, after he had been released by Daisuke. It was a painting of himself as only Daisuke could have seen him. It hand almost been frightening, almost a little grotesque. Standing in front of the life-sized portrait—how many months had it taken Daisuke to complete?—he could see half of his own face gazing back out at him, could recognize the reckless spark in his own violet eyes. Light illuminated the finely painted lines of his face and called attention to the animation and emotion in his expression. The colors Daisuke had chosen were soft and alive, bringing a sense of vitality to the painting, almost as if he could step out and greet himself.

But the other half of his likeness, wreathed in shadows, was smooth, cold stone. Not living at all, but flawless marble, the kind used for sculptures meant to endure through centuries. Daisuke had captured the haunting beauty of exactly one-half of the Black Wings—the half that had called Dark into existence.

Why had Daisuke painted Dark in such a way? Why had the magic spilled out from the portrait and broken the seal, releasing him but not Krad? After seeing Daisuke's work of art, sometimes Dark wondered if his transformation had been triggered because Daisuke had captured his likeness through the ultimate paradoxes of his existence—as something half human and half legend, half real and half art.

Until that unforgettable moment, Dark had never even seen himself. Whenever he had looked in a mirror, he had seen Daisuke, of course. Likewise, he had certainly never seen the original Black Wings, the mythical sculpture that had created Krad and himself.

It was a shock, but the vivid memory that immediately took hold of Dark was even more shocking. Staring at himself, Dark was taken back to that one day…

_Please don't forget the real me, Riku… I don't want you to forget that I exist. _

In Daisuke's voice and Daisuke's body he had asked her to remember. He should have already removed the memories rather than let her believe that it was all a dream from last night, but Dark had been too reluctant. Now he had to correct his mistake.

There was confusion in her gaze as he leaned forward, but she trusted Daisuke completely. His hand seemed to belong to someone else as his fingers reached out to brush her hair back from her forehead. Heart pounding and stomach twisting sharply, Dark gently erased his own existence from her mind.

That was the day when he finally realized just how much he wanted to be more than a phantom.

* * *

Daisuke's voice had been so gentle, so sympathetic, but Riku couldn't get his words out of her mind. Over and over she heard them, each syllable like a little hammer against her already cracking heart. _He doesn't want to come back_.

Fortunately, Daisuke's controlled calm overpowered her near hysterics at the news. She wanted to go see Dark right away, but the doctors wanted to check over her thoroughly first, to make sure than she wasn't suffering any brain damage from her concussion. The doctors won, since both of Riku's parents were there.

Riku wasn't sure what she had expected, but it was a shock. Of course they would have come when they'd found out that she'd been assaulted and injured, but in her mind, her parents had always occupied a different world—a safe, nonmagical one. Seeing them here, in Azumano, after everything that had happened, was almost as disorienting as learning that the cab driver and her stalker were actually the same person.

From Daisuke and Satoshi, she understood that Dark's part in everything had been left out, but everything else had been more or less faithfully rendered to her parents as the truth: the cab driver who had hit Risa had subsequently developed an obsession with the girl he had killed, and had followed Riku all the way to Japan. He'd lured her to the cathedral and then had assaulted her. Perhaps he had been driven insane by his guilty conscience over the hit-and-run, or perhaps he had always been mentally unstable.

Either way, Fukuda Kohei was dead and her parents finally had some closure at last for their daughter's death—but not in the way that they had wanted it. It was as if Riku's own close call with death had snapped something in her mother, causing her to realize that while they had only meant the best for Riku, they had only succeeded in pushing her away emotionally after Risa's death.

The next few hours passed in a blur for Riku as all the appropriate tests were run and all the paperwork properly filled out. It was Emiko, after all of it, who gently suggested that Riku could recuperate in the Niwa family's house while the Haradas regrouped, finally knowing after a week of worrying that their daughter would be all right.

"I'll be all right, Mom," Riku kept promising, and it was odd to hear herself so adamant. Half a year ago she had said the exact same words but hadn't meant them. She had resented her parents for forgetting Risa so easily, for begrudging Riku the time to mourn her twin's death. She had refused to forgive her parents for moving on and most of all, for expecting her to be able to do the same.

After all, her life had forever changed that day, too. Dark had understood that more than anyone else. Seeing how easily, how quickly, life had been taken away from her carefree, exuberant twin had made her afraid to live. She'd been punishing herself for having survived and in doing so, punishing her parents, too.

"We'll take good care of her," Kosuke told Riku's father. "It really would be best for Riku to stay with us…"

In a low tone, Emiko told her mother, "I'm afraid it might be too much for her to go back to her own home right now. The memories of being stalked might be very upsetting."

Ordinarily Riku would have said something to her parents to reassure them that she hadn't been quite that traumatized by Fukuda Kohei. But she desperately needed to see Dark, so she went along with it. "The Niwas have been so kind to me while I have been here. Please, Mom, Dad, let me go with them. I'll be home soon, but I feel safe there."

"All right," her mother agreed, seeing her daughter's resolve. "Riku, your father and I will go home and take care of the things we've put on hold, but we'll come by tonight."

"Anytime," Emiko told them both warmly. The families had obviously grown closer over the last week, during their prolonged hospital visits.

"Please get some rest, too," Riku said. Now that she really looked, she could see how exhausted both of her parents actually were. She couldn't imagine what they had gone through in the last week, knowing she was in a coma just as Risa had been…except her twin had never woken up.

Her mother hugged her once more, openly crying with relief, and something eased in Riku's chest—some hard, tangled knot that had been there ever since that terrible day when they had turned off the machines that were breathing for Risa. It was only now that Riku could accept that her parents had never meant to make her feel as though her grief had turned selfish. She had only felt that way out of guilt, because somewhere within her, she'd known it was true—she _had _clung to the pain and fear from Risa's death, and for reasons that only Dark had understood.

Riku was still so tired that all she remembered was lying back on her pillow and closing her eyes, and then when she opened them, she was in a dark and unfamiliar room. She vaguely remembered Daisuke effortlessly lifting her into his arms bridal-style, so they must have taken her out of the hospital while she had been sleeping. She was surprised the doctors had even allowed her release, but then again, she knew how persuasive the Niwas could be.

She sat up in bed gingerly, the pain in her broken ribs deterring her from any rash movements. For a moment, as her eyes adjusted to the dim light, she was sure that she was alone in the room. It was a sound that made her think otherwise—something that sounded like a choked cry, muffled against a pillow. Then there was the faintest rustle, as if heavy feathers were being dragged across cotton sheets.

"Oh god," she whispered involuntarily, her mouth going dry, and she _knew_. It took effort, but adrenaline spurred her upright. Thankfully the light controller was only a few steps from her bed. Even before she increased the level of light in the room, Riku knew what she would find.

But still, it was as if her eyes were deceiving her. Her eyes flew over the pitiful figure covered in bandages and curled up in the other bed, face turned away from her. Huge black wings were outstretched on either side of him, but only because heavy wooden splints had been tied to keep them in the correct position.

"No." The single word of denial came out in a shuddering breath as she tried to accept that it was Dark before her, the skeletal wooden framework bound to his wings looking like one of Leonardo da Vinci's flying machines. What was it that Daisuke had said? _He's pretty hurt_.

She had watched as Fukuda stabbed at Dark's wings. Although she didn't recall the impact of the earth at all, she could imagine how bad it must have been. In a way, it was supremely ironic as well as unfair. Risa had fallen to the ground, hit her head just so, and died. Riku had fallen at least five stories, but she had lived—because of Dark. She knew that Daisuke had told her Dark wasn't healing as he should have and that they weren't even sure if he would survive unless he woke up soon. Even so, nothing had prepared her for this.

"Riku?"

She turned so fast that dizziness swept through her and Daisuke quickly reached out to grab both of her arms as her knees went weak. He steadied her before gently guiding her back to her bed. "Daisuke, you didn't tell me that it was like this…" She sounded confused even to her own ears, as if she were a lost little girl shocked out of her senses.

"Riku, you shouldn't be up yet," her friend said sternly, but his crimson eyes were soft and sad as his gaze flickered to Dark and back. "You need more rest. You really shouldn't even be out of the hospital, but we thought…" He shrugged, embarrassed at having said too much.

Riku wasn't about to let it go. "What did you think?"

"Well, my dad thought that maybe Dark would be able to somehow sense that you were near him and that you were okay." Daisuke shrugged uncomfortably. "I know it sounds crazy, but the theory does makes sense, sort of. When we found you two after you'd crashed, Dark wouldn't let you go. He actually passed out before they could take you and put you on the ambulance stretcher."

"But Dark didn't wake up at all," Riku stated rather than asked, her stomach roiling with guilt. "He's been like this the whole time…the whole week while I was unconscious?"

Daisuke stood up and walked over to the side of Dark's bed, where he stuffed his hands into his pocket forcefully, as if stopping himself from doing something crazy. "The doctors at the hospital can't help him, Riku. We've done the best we can, but it just isn't enough." Daisuke paused for a moment, his voice thick, before he cleared his throat. "Towa-chan was the one who told us that Dark's hurt physically _and_ spiritually."

Hearing it for the second time wasn't a single bit easier. The words tore through Riku as if they could actually cause her bodily harm. The guilt almost crushed her where she stood. If she hadn't hurt him so much, would he have ever left her that night? If she hadn't foolishly gone straight to the cathedral, would Dark have ever let Fukuda Kohei come close enough to her to hurt her? Only she wasn't the one who had been hurt, in the end.

She closed her eyes, hot tears squeezing out through her eyelashes, but she could still see it all too clearly: Dark shivering now at the sound of their low voices, crying out quietly, feverish and wounded. Beneath the wooden frame, his black wings were covered with bandages darkened with clotted blood.

Daisuke continued speaking, his voice even softer. "We all thought that maybe he was hurting because he thought that the fall had killed you—you know, that he hadn't been able to save you."

_They thought—what?_ The sudden understanding was like a second blow to Riku. They thought that Dark wasn't healing because he thought he'd failed her. They thought he wasn't coming back because he didn't want to face her death.

Which meant that Daisuke didn't know. _None_ of them actually knew the truth.

Of course, how could they have? Everything had happened so fast. After Riku had accidentally found the pages of Risa's diary, it hadn't taken her that long to gather together her courage to do the right thing. It felt like every word they'd exchanged was permanently burned into her mind, including the moment she had told him she didn't love him—and he had believed it.

He'd left in a fury of wind and feathers and she'd cried on the balcony alone until she had seen the letter Risa's killer had left. From that point on, everything had spiraled out of control. She had been so stupid to think that she could talk to Fukuda Kohei. Riku knew that part of her had gone to the cathedral not because she had truly believed Fukuda had caught Dark, but because she hadn't been able to stand another moment of doing nothing but replaying the look in his eyes in her mind.

So Dark hadn't gone to Daisuke or Satoshi after he had left her. She should have realized right away that he wouldn't have gone to pour his heart out to Daisuke about how coldly Riku had rejected him. That meant that everyone thought that the two of them had still been together—still bodyguard and sacred maiden and also more. They had no idea how she had intentionally and quite thoroughly broken his heart… They didn't know that she was the reason why he wasn't healing and why he didn't want to come back.

"Are you feeling all right, Riku?" Daisuke asked her, sensing how close she was to breaking down. "You should lie back down. You're far from completely well, so you should take it easy."

Riku just felt so numb, so disconnected from everything. Her eyes burned, but she couldn't even cry. "Daisuke…you don't know…" But she couldn't bring herself to confess it.

Daisuke misunderstood her. "Don't worry about Dark. He'll be all right, he always is." He took a seat next to her on the bed, clearly struggling to find the right words with which to comfort her. "Besides, he's had injuries way worse than this before. It's practically a scratch compared to what Krad used to do to him, remember? So Dark'll be back with us in no time at all. You'll probably laugh to think about how worried you are now when he's back to trying to steal kisses from you again."

Something about the way Daisuke said it was just the last straw. "I need to talk to him again," she blurted out. "You don't understand. I need to see him, I need to tell him…"

Daisuke hugged her and she pressed her face into his shoulder blindly, her whole body shaking with the utter desperation she felt. The truth was a heavy stone in her stomach but she couldn't bring herself to tell Daisuke. The feeling of his arms around her only reminded her of Dark.

"He has to come back," she said to Daisuke, not looking at her friend. Her voice trembled and she hardened it until what she said sounded like a vow. "I have to find a way to bring him back."

* * *

Just a week ago, things had been so different for Riku. Risa, Fukuda Kohei, and Dark had been the center of her world. Now all there was left was Dark, and he was missing, unreachable. Riku knew she didn't deserve to get him back, but if there was anything she had learned in all this time, it was that in love, as in life, it didn't matter who deserved what. The heart simply wanted what it wanted.

Daisuke had finally left her so that she could rest, but sleep came fitfully to her. Riku woke up again in the middle of the night with the feeling of sudden hope making everything crystal clear. Dark was there, just across the room. She could hear his breathing, which at least had evened out and deepened, sounding more as if he were truly asleep rather than self-imprisoned in his own mind. He seemed so close, even though he might as well have been a thousand miles away.

She made her unsteady way across the room until she was standing beside the edge of his bed, looking down at him. The sense of déjà vu was so strong that it felt almost dreamlike. Hadn't she hesitated just like this before, that night that they had shared a bed with each other for the first time? This time around, she was still afraid to climb in, afraid to crush his already broken wings or inadvertently cause him more pain from his injuries.

He had kicked off the sheets sometime during the night and now lay shivering. Despite everything, he was still beautiful, although his features seemed sharper now. He had lost so much weight already. It still hurt so much to see him like this, skin pallid and cheeks flushed with fever. Even if Daisuke told her that Dark's injuries seemed to finally be healing—albeit human-slow, rather than at an enhanced supernatural rate—he seemed to actually be getting worse.

Seized by some kind of certainty that she wanted to believe was magical, Riku lay down carefully next to him, instantly feeling the intensity of his body heat. She wished she could cool his body with her own, as if she could absorb his warmth. In the semi-darkness, she saw his eyes move beneath his closed lids, as if he were dreaming—or as if he were just waking. For a moment, she thought he would open his eyes right then and wake up.

Instead, her heart nearly stopped beating when he shifted closer to her on the bed and then even closer again, until all of a sudden his hot chest was pressed against her back. Her breath seemed to leave her all at once and she was afraid to turn her head to see if he was awake. Just as she started to look anyway, his arms came around her, hard and tight, and suddenly he was curled all around her as if he were a child holding a teddy bear.

Riku swallowed hard, her entire body going still with shock as the memories swept over her—the exact feeling of him holding her like this, gripping too hard, wrapping his body as much as he could around hers as they were falling. Time seemed to stretch and then snap, like a rubber band.

Dark was too hot and his hold on her was sure to leave faint bruises, but Riku closed her eyes and wished, hoped, _dreamed_. She could almost pretend it was that night again. He was wearing even less, this time—there was no black sleeveless shirt, just bandages and medical tape over bare skin. She worried about jarring his wings, but somehow it worked. It must have hurt to have her pressing so hard against his injuries, but Dark didn't loosen his grip even a fraction.

"I'm here," she whispered into the silence. "Please, Dark…come back to me."

But Dark was silent, and even with his arms around her, he wasn't with her. Slowly, so slowly, Riku turned her head. A few messy dark violet strands framed his face. Some of the tension in his features had eased, but even with his eyes closed, he looked as though he were grieving.

And he was still insensate, still in his own world.

He had stopped her that night because he hadn't been willing to settle for anything less than her love. Riku was the one who always hesitated and pushed him away. Maybe that was why she had been so sure it would work. She had been sure, somehow, that he would just feel it—that he would know, if her body was pressed against his, that it was her. That she was ready to give him everything—heart, body, her whole life. Some part of Riku believed, or hoped, that if she tried her best to sooth him with her presence, than he would wake up and be himself again. He would not be like this wounded angel, half animal and half wild, locked in his own mind, his own world.

As the minutes became hours, Riku's muscles relaxed, though Dark's grip never loosened. Despite everything, some part of her still hoped. Even as she slid into sleep again, she imagined the connection between them being reestablished. Maybe she would dream of him and somehow find entry into his magical world that way. Maybe she was just secretly hoping that when she woke up the next morning, Dark would wake with her.

She wished she could press him against her even harder, as if she could convey to him all the things she had denied before.

But if she dreamed, she didn't remember it, and when she woke up nothing had changed.

In the cold, grey morning, still held in his arms, Riku cried until she thought her heart would just stop from the pain.

* * *

No one said anything the next day, but it was clear that they had rested their hopes on Riku, thinking that her presence would snap Dark out of whatever it was that prevented him from waking.

Riku was glad that it was Daisuke who found them in the morning, and who physically extracted her from Dark's unrelenting grip. She was even more thankful to find out that she had missed both of her parents' visits while she had been sleeping. She didn't think she had the courage to face anyone other than Daisuke.

She was quiet all morning and then she went back to the bedroom in the afternoon, citing fatigue. No one was fooled, but Riku didn't care. She had watched earlier as Emiko and Kosuke changed Dark's bandages and attempted to make him as comfortable as possible. In the daylight, the skeletal wooden frame bound to his wings looked even more impossible. Then again, there was nothing ordinary about having a winged being lying in bed.

"I searched for him once," Daisuke said from behind her. He closed the door with a click and locked it, coming to stand beside the chair she was sitting in.

"What do you mean?"

"There was an artifact called the 'Wings of Memory.' The magic made Dark lose his identity…or I guess you could say it made _me _lose my identity. It was always confusing, but I searched in Dark's imaginary world for these feathers that would remind Dark of who he was."

Riku knew that Daisuke was telling her something that he had never shared with anyone else. "So there's a whole different world out there? A magical one?"

"It's not really another world and it's more like it's _inside _him," Daisuke tried to explain. "It was like he thought he was me. He was living in this house, going to our school, everything. He actually thought _I _was the crazy one when I showed up."

"So what happened?" Riku looked at Dark and then looked down at her clasped hands. "How did you make him remember with the feathers."

"There were ten feathers," Daisuke told her as he got another chair and joined her at Dark's bedside. He looked at Riku briefly, his expression thoughtful. "Basically, they were held by people important to Dark. I had to find and take them so I could return them to him. I almost ran out of time before I realized the last feather, the tenth one, was one that I held myself. But, Riku—the ninth feather was the one I took from you."

Her breath caught as Daisuke's meaning sank in. "You're telling me that I was that important to him back then?"

"You were very important to both of us," Daisuke said, his gaze still affectionate. "But in a way, since you were mine, Dark could never have you. I guess the same way that since Dark was Risa's, he could never be yours."

A sudden, frightening thought occurred to Riku. "Daisuke…are there other things that happened, that I don't remember? Were there other times when I was with Dark in some way?"

She saw the answer in his face, but Daisuke hesitated. "It's not my place to give you those memories back, Riku."

"So I didn't remember…but you and Dark did?"

"Well, yes," Daisuke said with reluctance. "But don't judge him so harshly for it, Riku. He didn't have a choice. There's so much I learned about Dark, and so much of it is…"

Riku blinked back tears. "I think I know what you mean, Niwa-kun."

"I realized something while I was gathering Dark's memories," said Daisuke. "No matter how much Dark loves someone, or how hard he tries to love, his search for love would never be resolved—"

"—because he was a phantom thief," Riku finished for him. "Because he could never be real enough for the girl he loved."

Daisuke sighed. "Then you do understand. I think that was why the magic brought him back as someone separate from me. The entire time I was painting that portrait of Dark, I couldn't stop thinking about how sad it was for him, because I remembered thinking, even back then, that maybe his "happiness" was only found in that world."

"You mean the world that he created, where he was like you," said Riku. "An imaginary world."

"Yeah, pretty much."

They sat together, each lost in their own thoughts. Neither of them said anything else, but perhaps there was simply nothing more to be said.

* * *

"_You're—you're such a jerk!" _

"_You're mine, Riku. Remember when I kissed you?"_

"_You think that gives you anything over me?" She laughed scornfully. "As if you could claim me like an object just because your lips were the ones that unfortunately met mine first!"_

"_You liked it, you can't deny that." There was a gleam in his eye that pushed her too far over the edge. _

"_It's funny to you, isn't it?" Riku accused him, tears of frustration in her eyes. "Do you know how disappointed I was? My first kiss was with someone I hated...with someone the _exact opposite_ of what I'd always dreamed of—someone kind and good, someone to make me want to be a better person! Do you know how much I cried?"_

_She heard his softly indrawn breath, waited for him to say something. It was a relief to let the bitter words out, to describe even in some small part how he'd always made her feel—as if she were a plaything, some insignificant being that would never be at his level…his equal. _

_It had hurt, and hurt so much, that feeling of inferiority. And she wanted to hurt him with it, to make him feel just the tiniest bit of what she did. She wanted him to understand._

"_It made me feel so sick…" Just thinking about it brought it all back, the mixture of shame and disgust she had felt, the overwhelming disappointment over something that was both so trivial and yet so important to her. "I… I wanted my first kiss to be from Daisuke."_

_She finally turned around to face him. His expression gave nothing away, but his violet eyes were almost black, and utterly unreadable in any case. It was only his hands that gave away any emotion. They were tightly clenched into fists at his sides. _

"_Is that how you really feel about me, Riku?"_

"_Yes," she flung at him, and it was so strange—it was as if she could feel just how much it hurt him. Like everything between them, the hateful and hurtful words, were just his worst fears coming true._

_He turned around and left without a word. _

_Riku was left confused. It was as if she were her, and she were Dark at the same time… Or maybe she was neither, because she felt her feelings and his, but she saw the whole scene playing out before her through two sets of eyes too. She was both sides of the argument. _

_All he heard from those words was the Riku of that moment so long ago who had thought him a perfect monster, who had wanted to wipe her mouth after that kiss._

_And all she felt was that it wasn't really like that anymore, and she loved him. That was how she really felt about him, and she had to tell him. She _had _to tell him._

_But she kept on confusing past and present, her role and his role, her feelings and his, just endlessly bouncing back and forth like a yo-yo on a string just about to break. _

_She didn't understand what this was. This had never happened—or had it? Was this one of the memories she had lost, but Dark had kept? There was a faint feeling, like all this was remembered, but it also felt oddly soundless, flat, strange—like it was a fragment of a nightmare._

_But…not hers?_

* * *

"Dark's," she said with a gasp, sitting straight up in bed and then almost mewling at the white-hot pain from her ribs. It wasn't her nightmare at all.

It was _Dark's_ nightmare, and it hinged on that first moment that had started it all.

It was as if all the pieces suddenly fell into place and this time, Riku knew exactly what she had to do. She knew how to reach Dark, how to enter into his world, the only world where he could find happiness.

She would have to steal a kiss from him.

It only took a few moments, and then Riku bent over Dark and pressed her lips desperately against his, seeking the connection that would lead her to him.

Her heart beat once, twice—she started to fear that she was wrong about all of it—

And suddenly she found herself in Dark's world, kissing him.

* * *

tbc

* * *

A/N: The next (and final) chapter will be up ASAP. Really!


	15. Redemption

**Dare You to Live**

By ElveNDestiNy

June 11, 2012

A/N: It seems like I'm always starting out with an apology for taking so long, and I guess even in the last chapter, I'm doing the same thing again. It's incredible that you all have stuck with this story so long and have been so patient with me. Thank you all so much your understanding and support. It's been my pleasure to have you share this with me, especially since so much of this story is unusual that it's about inner contemplation and not action.

I usually find it really hard to write endings and this was no exception. I must have rewritten this at least three times, but I never came to that moment where I know exactly how it should be. A long time ago, I promised myself that I wouldn't end up writing stories with sappy endings where all the problems in the world are miraculously fixed with confessions and rainbows and fuzzy feelings… So, I may have broken my promise to myself with Dare, but I think all that warmth and love has been hard earned. And isn't that what love is like? When it goes right, it's the most perfect thing in the universe.

In the end, I'm still not sure if I'm completely satisfied with this chapter, but I couldn't leave this story unfinished any longer. I do feel like this is what this story is about, so I hope you enjoy this last part. There are all these clichés about how endings are just new beginnings, but for the particular endeavor, it's so very true. Please let me know if the ending feels too abrupt for closure, though. I might write a very short epilogue, just a few paragraphs as possibly one of those 'three weeks later' bits. If I do, I'll add to this chapter and reupload.

I think I've mentioned this before, but the inspiration for this whole story actually came from Switchfoot's "Dare You to Move." If you haven't heard the song before, I encourage you to check it out. By the way, after two years, I've finally resolved my stalker situation as much as it can probably be resolved. Let me just tell you, it is an awesome feeling.

**- 15: Redemption -**

One moment she was in a darkened room, bent over Dark and pressing her lips against his unresponsive ones—then suddenly in the next moment, Riku was on a street in broad daylight, lips locked with a fully awake and perfectly healthy looking—

"YARRGGGHH!"

Two hands pushed hard just below her collarbones, causing Riku to let out an girlish shriek as she lost her balance and fell, her backside abruptly connecting with the unforgiving and hot concrete pavement of the sidewalk.

For a moment, the sharp ache in her ribs and the stinging in her scraped palms didn't even register with her. Riku stared up, completely taken aback, as Dark glowered down at her.

"What the—who—how did you suddenly appear out of nowhere?"

It was hard to tell whether he was more freaked out or furious. He took a deep breath, presumably for calming purposes…or not.

"AND WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?" Dark roared, while Riku watched, wide-eyed, as the coolest guy she had ever known in her life seemed to have a minor meltdown over what was at most a five second kiss. Violet eyes scanned her rapidly from head to toe, his gaze feeling as intense as a laser.

"Uhm…" Riku stammered in response, only because he was clearly demanding some kind of response. How had they ended up here? Suddenly aware that they weren't alone and that people passing by had stopped to stare and gawk at them, she felt her entire face flush with red-hot embarrassment. "I-I was, uh…stealing my first kiss back?"

Her desperate attempt at humor evidently fell flat, since Dark didn't even offer to help her up. "Are you crazy? Where did you come from?"

If Riku thought she'd felt the eyes of a dozen people on her before, now it felt as if the whole world were watching her. She got up slowly, wincing when she realized that she'd carried her fractured ribs with her from the real world to this world. The look on his face started to worry her, too. "I can explain, okay? But can we please first go somewhere—well, somewhere more private?"

One elegant eyebrow arched in surprise. Dark's expression changed slightly from shock and outrage to mere annoyance, but he remained silent. Around the same time, Riku started to get a really bad feeling. Seriously, he was being kind of a jerk about this. After all, he was the one who had ambushed and kissed girls he didn't even know. Despite what Daisuke had told her about Dark's "alternate" world, she hadn't been prepared in the least to end up kissing Dark in the middle of the street, where by now _everyone _was looking at them.

"Please, Dark. Don't make me talk to you about us out here." She tried to stress the _about us_ part in order to snap him out of whatever shock he was in. Did he even realize what had happened—that she had come looking for him, to make him wake up in reality?

Her plea finally got a response, but it was the last thing Riku had expected.

"Who are you, and how do you know my name?"

* * *

It was an unbelievable mess. Riku rested her head against the palms of her hands, trying to avoid looking at Dark, who was sitting across from her. They were in the corner booth of a small restaurant that Riku had wordlessly dragged Dark into only a few minutes ago. Thankfully, it was the kind of low-key place that served simple, but satisfying fare. It seemed to be around midafternoon, so there weren't too many patrons.

The waitress was at their table promptly and Riku ordered whatever was at the top of the menu, briefly wondering if she should do so. It didn't look like her purse or wallet had been transported with her, although her right arm was still in a cast, so her injuries definitely had. But really, what was the worst that could happen? She'd get caught by the police while doing a dine-and-dash in some world that existed only in Dark's mind?

Yeah, this was totally unbelievable… It was one thing for Dark to escape to his fantasy world while his body was essentially dying, but even in this world, he'd _forgotten _her? Figuring out how to reach him was supposed to be the hard part. She wasn't supposed to have fallen into a situation like Daisuke had described just yesterday.

Half of her was annoyed. The other half was still too scared at the thought of losing Dark. One way or another, if he didn't remember her and she couldn't get him to "wake up," he was lost to her, and to everyone else who loved him.

She couldn't help but look up, taking in his obvious health. There were no shadows in his eyes, no hint of uncertainty. He was the Dark she remembered from all those years ago, a young man reckless enough to steal a kiss on a young girl's balcony, secure in his identity as a phantom thief.

"And would you like to order anything, sir?" The continued presence of the young waitress was enough to make Riku straighten her spine and drop her hands to her lap, although she kept her eyes on the table. Her etiquette teacher would have been proud of her composure.

Dark didn't miss a thing. She could almost feel his eyes on her, although out of the corner of her eye, Riku could see the waitress pouting a little at the rudeness from her handsome customer. After a long pause, Dark leaned back, deliberately relaxing into his seat. He turned to the waitress, dazzling her with the full force of his charismatic attention. "I'll have the chicken _omuraisu_, thank you."

For a second, hearing his choice, Riku wondered if Dark actually did know everything that was going on, but was just intent on making her life difficult. She remembered that before she had cooked it for him, he hadn't ever tried _omuraisu_ before, even though it was such a common and easy dish. Was it a hint that this was all a game—or even some way of forcing her to pay her penance for abandoning him? Or could it be that some part of him _did_ remember the time they had spent together, no matter how much he'd blocked out the memories?

The waitress lingered for another minute, trying to talk some more with Dark, while Riku's hopes slowly crumbled. She struggled to hide her annoyance as Dark quite willingly turned on the charm for the other girl, seemingly not caring that Riku was right in front of him. Sourly, Riku reflected that at least she could be sure that this really was the famous, flirtatious Kaitou Dark and not an impostor.

"Is something the matter?" Dark had the nerve to ask when he finally focused his attention back on her.

Riku opened her mouth to say just part of the very long list of everything that had gone wrong and was still getting worse, but found herself unable to say anything at all. What was she doing, being pettily jealous over a waitress, when Dark's _life_ was still in danger? It didn't matter what he remembered or not. There was only one thing she was sure of, at this point, and it was the most important thing.

"I know you don't remember," Riku tried to explain. "But I don't think we have much time. You have to go back soon, Dark."

As soon as she uttered the words, though, Riku knew from his expression that he was wondering once again if she really was crazy. She was so used to getting Dark's full attention and trust that she found herself unable to respond to him when he was treating her like a stranger. From the first moment they had met, all those years ago, there had always been a natural connection between them, for better or worse—and now that was just gone. It its place seemed to be an unbridgeable chasm of awkwardness and uncertainty.

"Okay, why don't we start with who you are and why you showed up out of nowhere," Dark suggested, although his tone brooked no argument. "Then you can finish up with why you decided it was all right for you to kiss me."

"My name is Harada Riku," she told him, and then stopped. It was impossible to figure out where to start. What could she say, that she came from another world? That this world wasn't even real, was just a figment of his imagination, where he'd erased his memory of her?

Riku had never thought she would need to convince him to return after she'd found him—it should have only been a matter of confessing the truth to him. But now, she was starting to realize that there was the slight problem of not even knowing how to go "back" herself. Was it just as easy as making him remember her? Or where there secret doors or entrances in this world that they were supposed to find, which would lead them both back to the real world—or artifacts to steal, or feathers, or who knew what? It was overwhelming.

"Do you remember Daisuke?" Riku asked in a sudden burst of inspiration.

Dark frowned. "Of course. How do _you _know him?"

For some reason, it hurt more to realize that Dark hadn't forgotten everyone else—just her. "I don't know how to even begin to explain this, Dark." She instinctively reached out to close the distance between them, maybe just to put her hand on his arm, but he shifted back. For a moment, the sting of that subtle rejection was so strong that she forgot what she had planned to say. Her chest seemed to hollow out.

It was that feeling that undid her, the knowledge that she was feeling probably only a tiny fraction of the heartache that she had caused him. It was all her fault that everything had ended up like this anyway. Because she had been too afraid to live, she had endangered his life. If he had forgotten her completely now, it wasn't as the result of an accident. She had hurt him so badly, he had literally chosen not to come back—and even more than that, to forget the person who had hurt him.

"Well, are you going to at least try?"

Dark's question startled her out of her dismal thoughts. He was looking at her with a slight smile. "I'd like to know how a girl like you appeared out of nowhere and ended up kissing me."

"I guess I should start with an apology," Riku said quietly, ignoring his flippancy. "But not for kissing you."

"What for, then?" Dark didn't seem hostile or disbelieving, just confused. "I'm the one who pushed you. I'm sorry about that, by the way. You startled me."

"No, it's not—just, just…_listen_, okay? I know you won't get it, but I need to tell you." The words seemed to burst from her, all the things she had thought of in the last couple of days, knowing that he was in a coma because of her. She could already feel tears flooding her eyes, but Riku kept going anyway, despite knowing he wouldn't understand a word of it, this confession coming toward him like a misguided bullet.

"I never meant to hurt you like this"—and it didn't even matter that he didn't understand what _this _was, his memory, and this fake world, and everything—the words just kept pouring out of that scared, tightly clenched place inside of Riku.

"I was afraid and I thought it would be wrong, you know? Because this is everything she ever really wanted. Everything, Dark. Her life, her dreams. Well, ourdream. I don't even know anymore! Between Risa and knowing about Rika, I was afraid I was going to lose track of who _I _was." She could see from his incredulous expression that this whole talk was all going wrong, but like a train wreck, she couldn't stop herself from disaster. "I didn't think you actually knew or wanted me, not just…I don't know, an idea of me, or something. The girl you could finally have."

Dark's expression had been growing more and more shuttered through her rambling confession, but he tried to interrupt. "Look, I don't—"

"But the truth is, Dark—the truth is that I did know. I knew you loved me, and I knew how I felt about you, but I was just…afraid."

To Riku's horror, her voice broke with the last word. Her face felt hot and wet with tears and she was shaking so hard that she felt almost numb with the overload of sensations. More tears slid silently out of her eyes, though she wasn't quite crying, not yet. She was about a minute from it, though, if something didn't change.

Riku furiously wiped the liquid off her cheeks with her hand, unable to look Dark in the eye. Self-disgust stopped the tears and steadied her, though her stomach continued to roil with emotion. She didn't deserve the small consolation of being able to cry over her mistakes, not when he was the one suffering for them. She had never felt so stupidin front of him before, had never fallen apart right in front of him, and becauseof him.

"I'm sorry, but I don't know any of the people you're talking about." Dark sounded more uncomfortable than apologetic, but what else did she expect, after she blurted out a mess like that? She didn't dare look up to try to read his expression. "But you really think we know each other?"

"It's the truth," Riku told him shakily, staring down at the napkin she'd unconsciously shredded in her lap. He had sounded almost defensive, as if he knew something wasn't right. "You just forgot me."

Did he think she was lying? In his shoes, Riku would have, especially after her spectacular failure of an apology. She took a few deep breaths, forcing herself to calm down, glad that he was going along with the pretense that she hadn't just started crying in front of him—supposedly a virtual stranger. Exhaustion settled over her like a hundred pound blanket, making her feel even worse.

On top of all that, she could see that Dark was getting impatient. His curiosity in their unusual situation had turned more toward antipathy, and she couldn't blame him for losing interest in what she had to say. She was barely coherent. Her eyes hurt and the person she most wanted comfort from had chosen not to know her at all.

"I already told you I don't know you, so what do you want from me?" Dark leaned forward, seemingly more at ease now that the threat of her imminent breakdown seemed to have passed. A spark of mischief lit his eyes. "Are you one of those people who live in some kind of fantasy?" His tone suggested he knew exactly what kind of fantasies she had about him.

"_No_," Riku all but shouted back, abruptly reminded of why she had spent so many years thinking of him as a pervert. Maybe he had been trying to make her feel better in his own way, but it only sent a frisson of anger through her. "_You_ were the one who started it all when you kissed me that night."

"Really," Dark answered, not quite a statement and not quite a challenge. His bright gaze caught hers, compelling her with the directness of his renewed interest. "Why didn't you just say so? What was your name again?"

"Riku," she said very softly. Inside, she almost boiled with rage. Just how many anonymous girls had Dark kissed, if he actually thought she might be one of them even though he didn't remember anything?

"Well, Riku, you're right after all." His smile was more sharp than sincere. "You're a lovely girl, but I don't understand what's going on with you, and I'm starting to think I don't think I want to."

She couldn't stand looking at him when he turned cold like this. Why was this Dark so hard, so desperate to prove he didn't care, beyond how well he could put girls under his spell? In just the little time Riku had spent with him, he had been over the place, a flirt and a jerk all rolled up in one. They really were almost like strangers. It was as if the softness she knew in her own Dark, the glimpses of vulnerability she was now realizing that he had _let _her see, were all gone.

"You've known me since I was 14, ever since you've known Daisuke," Riku told him, knowing she was losing him. She needed to do something, needed to at least try to convince him to remember.

"I don't—"

"I know! Just _listen_, can't you?" she almost cried. "I know some part of you still has to care."

Dark studied her, no longer flirtatious or careless. He looked almost uneasy. "All right."

Before he could change his mind, Riku charged ahead. "You used to like my twin, Risa, but then someone killed her and started to come after me. We were…we cared a lot for each other. You tried to protect me, and that was how you ended up so badly hurt that now you don't remember us being together—"

Dark stood up abruptly. "I've heard enough." He took out some money and left it on the table. "You can have the food when it comes. I don't know why I even ordered it."

"Wait—" In her desperation, Riku reached out and grabbed his arm. "Dark, you loved me! No, you _love _me."

With just that one word, Dark's expression became thunderous. He jerked his arm out of her grasp in one vicious movement. "See, I know that you're lying. I would never claim to love anyone."

Before she could reply, he strode away, not even looking back to see her reaction. He was in such a hurry that he almost crashed into the waitress as she came back to their table, ready with a smile for Dark, and carrying their two plates of chicken _omuraisu_.

* * *

Dark's Azumano City, Riku quickly found out, was not really a carbon copy of her own. After leaving the restaurant in near tears and with profuse apologies to the waitress, she had tried to find her way back home—or at least, to where her home would have roughly been located. Riku was fairly sure she had found the area, but nothing looked the same. Her house wasn't even there. The school she, Risa, Daisuke, and Satoshi had attended, wasn't there either.

With nowhere else to go, she next tried walking to Daisuke's house, only to find that even if this Dark remembered Daisuke, evidently the Niwa's neighborhood wasn't the same either. She had no other way of contacting Daisuke, Satoshi, or anyone who might know who she was—supposing that they remembered her, anyway. Riku debated her two bleak choices: wander around some more in this ghostly, unfamiliar version of Azumano, or go back to the street where she had suddenly found herself kissing Dark.

Riku was also beginning to regret leaving the food behind in the restaurant, not that she had been in any state to eat. She might be in a dream world, but it certainly felt real enough to her. Her legs ached from walking around for hours and she really wanted a shower. The emotional rollercoasters she had been through had worn down her determination. The possibility that she might fail had crossed her mind more than once.

It took her half an hour after she finally arrived back to exactly where she started to realize that the tightness in her stomach was as much from hunger as from dread of the imminent dusk. But even this late in the afternoon, with the skies darkening rapidly, she was attracting too much attention simply standing there in the street.

Riku retreated to a shop located a little ways down from the restaurant, pretending to browse the odd, cute, handcrafted knickknacks on display. What was she going to do for the night? At least Daisuke, when he was stuck in Dark's memory world, knew that he was supposed to be finding people important to Dark and getting feathers from them.

Her eyes felt so gritty and hurt so much that Riku found a discreet corner in front of a closed shop and leaned against it, closing her eyes in relief. She was too tired to care what anyone else thought of her, the weariness so pervasive in her body that she even sank to the floor. Almost all the people had gone home on this street. It was looking very likely that she would have to sleep here in her corner, but she couldn't even muster up the energy to be concerned about whether Dark's imaginary city had crime.

She had to try to find him again…but in just a moment, after she had rested a little. She could sleep for a while and keep searching then, couldn't she? Suddenly, Riku sat bolt upright, realizing that if she fell asleep, maybe she would end up back in the "real" world—without Dark. What had she expected, that one kiss would erase all the consequences of her months of indecision and doubt?

A dark shape seemed to cross the dusky sky and out of habit, she looked upward. Her breath caught in her chest when she realized that it was Dark. She scrambled to her feet, gritting her teeth as sore and stiff muscles ached. If she could figure out where he was going, she could try to meet him there, try to talk to him and persuade him again.

Riku ran down the empty street, anxious eyes fixed skyward and she watched Dark's shape get smaller and smaller in the distance. He looked so lonely but so free, and he was headed toward something high, protruding from the urban sprawl, maybe a tower of some sort. Riku tripped and almost fell, but caught herself just in time. The cast on her right arm made her movements clumsy and she was running so slowly, while he was flying farther and farther away. She could just make it out against the dark horizon—and suddenly, she realized that she recognized the steeple.

Out of breath, ribs on fire, Riku finally came to a stop. She swayed on her feet and sank down into a crouch, waiting until the familiar black spots faded from her vision.

But at least she knew where he was headed: the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels.

* * *

"Is anyone in there?"

Riku pounded the door in vain, taking out all her fury and frustration on the thick, solid piece of wood. It didn't budge.

It had taken her another whole hour to actually get to the cathedral and Riku was feeling worse than ever. Every breath made her injured ribs hurt so much that she had more than once tried holding her breath, wishing that she didn't need the oxygen so desperately. Yet now that she was finally here, and sure that Dark was somewhere up there, the entrance of the cathedral was locked. She wasn't sure if she was going to laugh or cry.

Too tired to keep standing, she sat at the foot of the door, letting herself lean against it, dust and all. Her right ribs ached so much that she took light, shallow breaths, which only made her feel dizzier overall. She supposed that a defunct cathedral was as good of a place to overnight as a deserted street. Riku closed her eyes, hating that the night air was beginning to make her cold on top of everything else.

"I suppose you're here looking for me," a very familiar voice said above her some time later, and Riku snapped out of her doze with a jerk.

In contrast to her bedraggled state, Dark looked pretty much exactly as he had when he had ditched her at the restaurant. His expression didn't look much friendlier, although Riku wanted to squirm under his once again appraising gaze. Above them, the cathedral bells began to ring and she counted them; it tolled eight times in all.

"It's getting late, Harada Riku. Why don't you stop trying to follow me around and go home?" Although his words were as antagonistic as ever, his tone was inscrutable.

Hating how he towered over her, Riku painfully got to her feet, trying her best not to clutch at her right side as the movements sent stabbing pains through her. "I'm not giving up. And I'm not a liar."

"What's wrong with you?"

At first, Riku thought he was still going on about how she was crazy. Then she realized that Dark was looking at the cast on her right arm, which she was holding against her stomach. "You saved my life. I fell from the steeple tower up there and you came after me. I woke up just a broken arm and some fractured ribs."

He shook his head. "You do have a wild imagination, that's for sure."

"What'll it take for you to believe me, Dark?" Riku sucked in a huge breath, her frustration overriding the pain. "You don't remember because you don't _want _to remember! And I _know_ it's my fault, but I don't know how I can convince you!"

For a moment, she thought she had gotten to him. The look in his eyes was hot and intense, keeping her still as he came closer to her. "I told you before. Even if you're right and I don't remember everything"—Riku's breath caught at that small admission—"I would never have told a girl I loved her."

"And you didn't," Riku breathed, the belated realization making everything clear. "You never actually said it, Dark. But it didn't need to be said."

And yet it did need to be said. The truth that she needed to tell Dark was both simpler and more complicated than what she had been thinking. It was the truth that she hadn't had the courage to admit before. She knew that Dark loved her, even if he had never said so. His actions had shown it to her over and over again. But Dark had believed that she didn't love him.

He was looking at her with an unfathomable expression, as if he had sensed something different about her, and was afraid to actually see what it was. Maybe it was out of an instinct for self-preservation—it was easier for him to keep on seeing her as a stranger, than facing full on just how much she had let him down when she had rejected him.

"Then why are we here?" he asked. "Who are you to me, Riku?"

"I'm someone who you saved in more than one way. You taught me to face my fears and to let go of them. You saw how I was and knew how I should be—you knew that I'd given up on life after what happened to Risa, and you showed me that it's all right to live again." Riku looked up at him, knowing that she was still only telling him who he was to _her_.

She ran the tip of her tongue over her bottom lip nervously, wishing there was some way that she could show him everything she was feeling. For different reasons, they both hadn't been able to let go of their pasts. He was the one who had convinced her that they were meant to try together.

But Dark was looking both at her and through her, as if looking into the distance. Riku saw his pupils dilate and his lips part as she finally got past the walls he had put up around himself in defense. He shuddered a little, his shoulders tensing and hunching in defense, and she remembered again how, after he had stood by her through all her ups and downs, through all her grief and fears, she had turned him away.

"I know it hurts," she whispered, and he turned away. " But I dare you to remember, Dark."

Riku wasn't sure if it was just her imagination or if the world truly had darkened around them, until they were both almost hidden in shadows. The sky was almost pitch black, a few stars peaking through the clouds, but with no moon. But she had hidden herself for far too long already. If she had learned anything from him, it was that letting go of the past didn't mean forgetting it, and remembering the past wouldn't stop someone from living in the present.

Her heart ached as she stood in front of him, the tiny distance between them almost unbearable to her. At last Dark looked back at her—recognition flooding his eyes.

She took a deep breath, shivering hard, but not from the cold. "I… I love you, Dark."

Warmth enveloped her as he took her into his arms, careful not to squeeze too hard. Riku closed her eyes, a few tears of relief trickling down her cheeks as she pressed herself against him. She breathed in his scent deeply and it didn't hurt. Nothing did. It felt like a great weight had been lifted from her, and the hollowness in her chest had broken open and bright, warm, white light was streaming in.

"I love you too."

Something wet splashed onto her neck and Riku vaguely realized that a few tears had escaped Dark. She hugged him tighter, unable to stop herself from crying a little in relief and joy as well. After a moment, he drew back and she opened her eyes, only to be caught by the tenderness with which he looked at her.

"Can I kiss you?" he asked hoarsely, and she couldn't reply, could only nod yes.

Glossy black-feathered wings wrapped around them both as his lips met hers and Riku let herself melt into it, knowing that Dark's happiness could be found in the real world too.

* * *

_Fin_


End file.
